I agree that the usage of “white” is irrelevant here. That being said, are you in academics? It is not an unusual situation for people to not be aware of the “face behind the maths” so to speak. Granted, this is not entirely unique to women in science but it is exhaustingly common for women to be questioned more than their peers.

I think questioning this is fine as many people lie but I wouldn’t take this to mean this type of situation didn’t happen/couldn’t happen.