'In vulnerability there is power': Alicia Roth Weigel discusses being intersex in Texas

On Monday night at Austin’s Central Library downtown, Alicia Roth Weigel floated into the auditorium, cheered on by an ecstatic standing ovation. Accompanying her in conversation was Jonathan Van Ness, the multifaceted star of Netflix’s “Queer Eye” who is also a hair stylist, podcast host, standup comic, author and activist.

Van Ness immediately declared the auditorium a safe space, garnering enthusiastic laughs and “woos” from the crowd.

Weigel and Van Ness launched into a discussion of Weigel’s memoir, released nationwide on Tuesday. “Inverse Cowgirl” recounts her experience living and working in Texas as an intersex woman, advocating for marginalized populations across the southern United States, and serving as a human rights commissioner for the City of Austin.

More: The Kind Clinic in Austin expands to provide intersex-specific health care

Intersex, included on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum but commonly misunderstood, is defined as individuals born with a combination of male and female biological traits. Planned Parenthood estimates that 1-2 in 100 people born in the U.S. are intersex.

Weigel was born with XY chromosomes, a vagina externally and testes rather than a uterus and ovaries internally.

Shortly after birth, her parents made the decision to have her testes removed, in a surgery that Weigel said “broke her” and has led to hormonal imbalances and a recent diagnosis of osteoporosis, something she said could have been avoided had her testes not been removed.

The secret of Weigel’s intersex identity was kept hidden for 27 years, until she very publicly revealed it at a Senate committee hearing during the 85th Texas Legislative session, when Weigel was working for former Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis.

More: Watch our documentary 'Existing as transgender in Texas'

Weigel used her experience as an intersex woman to testify against S.B. 3, which aimed to require people to use the bathroom that matched the gender on their birth certificates.

As an intersex individual, Weigel could technically use either bathroom, and she called attention to this, contradicting the bill’s supporting senators' long-drawn out arguments.

Who should read this book? Everyone.

Weigel pointed out at Monday’s event that even though intersex individuals make up about 2% of the world’s population, her book resonates with everyone. At its core, it’s about bodily autonomy and acceptance.

More: 'Every body' documentary highlights life of intersex Austin resident

“The first line of the book is something to the effect of ‘I sat down to write this book the day that half of the United States lost the right to their own bodies,’ because I started writing the day that Roe v. Wade was reversed, and that’s a right I never had, from the day I was born,” Weigel said.

“This book is about reclaiming your autonomy, but more broadly, it’s about healing, because all of us have something to heal from.”

Yet despite her messages of affirmation and positivity, Weigel said she expects her book to be banned in public school districts across the state.

“It’s hard to be intersex in Texas … but you can learn how to channel what you’ve been given by the universe, and mitigate the negative parts, and lean into the positive parts, and own who you are,” she said.

“What society tells us makes us weak often is the source of our greatest strength, so as long as we have the courage to heal, and channel it in positive ways, in vulnerability there is power, in flaws there is beauty.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Alicia Roth Weigel talks memoir 'Inverse Cowgirl' at BookPeople event