News

Female African Soccer Star Forced To Strip Naked To Prove She Is Female

Published

8 years ago

January 13, 2015

Last year, Equatorial Guinea star and one of Africa’s leading footballers, Genoveva Anonma made headlines when she called for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations to be cancelled to avoid spreading the Ebola virus to her home country. Now the former African women’s “Footballer of the Year” has opened up to the BBC about the embarrassing treatment she received from African football authorities when they asked her to strip down naked and prove she was a woman. Rival teams had questioned Genoveva Anonma’s gender but instead of instigating proper medical gender tests, they simply forced her to strip naked straight after Equatorial Guinea won the Africa Cup of Nations.
BBC Sportshour’s Sam Sheringham spoke to Genoveva about that harrowing event, and she said:
“I don’t know how they usually do it, but they kept accusing me. Because I’m quite energetic and very strong they say it was impossible that I could be a woman. I don’t know what I did to make them think I’m a man. They didn’t do any hospital tests. I was hoping they would call me to tell me they were taking me to a hospital to do tests – but they never did.
I’ve never had a single apology”