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With a goal on her home soil to clinch the 2008 African Women’s Championship for Equatorial Guinea, Genoveva Anonma should have been crying out in happiness, feeling at the top of the sports world, because she was.
Instead, the tears she says she spilled were for a heartbreaking invasion of privacy.
As rivals accused her of being a man, the Confederation of African Football chose the more straight-forward and forceful path to sorting the dispute, she said.
“They asked me to take all my clothes off in front of officials from CAF and the Equatorial Guinea team,” Anonma told the BBC. “I was hoping they would call me to tell me they were taking me to hospital to do tests, but they never did. They did nothing to me. It was just down to me alone to defend myself, to state that I am not a man, I am a woman.”
For the current Turbine Potsdam star, a team in Germany, the whispers — and shouts — still would not go away, even after baring all.
The 2010 African Championship saw the same allegations fly, as Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana said not only was Anonma a man, but two of her teammates, sisters Salimata and Bilguisa Simpore, were disguising their sexuality.
“You only need to have physical contact with them on the pitch to know [they are men],” Ghana defender Diana Amkomah said.
Anonma just kept refuting the claims, even offering to undergo medical gender testing.
“These accusations come because I am fast and strong, but I know that I am definitely a woman.”