By Josh Watkins
What is intersex? It’s the ‘I’ in LGBTQIA, but it’s still something that not many folks know about. Intersex is a condition in which individuals are born with reproductive and sexual anatomy that does not fit into the institutionalized “male” or “female” boxes. In honor of Intersex Awareness Day (October 26), we caught up with Alicia Roth Weigel, an “intersexy” “policy, advocacy, and campaign strategist for the progressive movement.”
“If we talk about spectrums, on the sexuality spectrum, it’s who you’re attracted to,” Weigel explains. “On the gender spectrum, it’s how you identity. And there’s actually a biological spectrum that not a lot of people know about—not everyone is born in the binary of male or female. There are people born physically in between, [in terms of] characteristics and genitalia, because of chromosomal differences or hormonal differences. The reason I describe it as a spectrum is because you’re not either male, female, or intersex. Like, some men grow more facial hair than other men. So, physically, you’re on a spectrum of every biological trait.”
Weigel’s work in advocacy started early. Shortly after finishing college, she worked in Angola and South Africa, helping to launch women-led nonprofits. But it wasn’t until she moved back to the United States and took a job with Wendy Davis that her true role in the progressive movement began. Davis brought Weigel to Texas to help launch her nonprofit, Deeds Not Words. Together, they used the nonprofit as a platform to educate young people on how to advocate for causes that they believe in, specifically in the area of women’s rights.
At first, Weigel didn’t feel the need to advocate within the intersex movement and community. She had surgery as an infant, presents seemingly as a cisgender woman, and—other than having a different experience with puberty than other adolescents—was never forced to come out to anyone other than her immediate family. After starting her work with Davis, however, Weigel began to feel like a hypocrite, as she was encouraging high school students to come forward, to share stories, and to be vulnerable, yet she was hiding a big piece of her own identity. “Wendy and I were somewhere in Pennsylvania in the middle of the woods giving a training at a camp, and we had had a couple glasses of wine, so I told her,” Weigel says. “She was super supportive and was actually the first person since my parents that I had come out to. I told her that I wanted to come out in a way that would be meaningful for the progressive movement.”
Through working with Wendy and attending Texas legislative sessions, Weigel met Danielle Skidmore, transgender activist and now candidate for Austin City Council. The introduction seemed to be a sort of professional meet cute, as they were there to argue against the notorious “bathroom bill.” After meeting Skidmore, Weigel wanted to take the next step in fighting the bill and was inspired to come out publicly…in front of the Texas Legislature. “I decided I wanted to come out in front of the legislature, but I didn’t know what to do because I had never [publicly] come out before,” she says. “So I messaged Danielle on Facebook telling her that I wanted to advocate for the bill. At this point, it was well after midnight, and she’s like, ‘That’s great!” After the fact, I realized she was probably thinking, ‘Okay, random cis white girl, what are you doing messaging me so late about this?’ So, I told her that I wanted to come out because I’m intersex, and she was like, “Ohhhh.” So, she sort of coached me and we got to the capitol early the next morning to prep.”
Since publicly coming out in July 2017, Weigel’s role as an advocate for the intersex community has taken off. She currently works as an advocacy strategist for interACT, an organization that advocates for the human rights of intersex individuals. Post-coming out, Weigel and Skidmore’s friendship also grew, and when Skidmore decided to run for Austin City Council, Weigel became her campaign manager. “I’ve gotten to return the favor with helping [Danielle] come out as a politician,” Weigel says. “I think her campaign is the first ever run by an XY chromosome woman for an XY chromosome woman candidate, and one of them is trans and one of them is intersex.”
“Allowing myself to own my identity has allowed me to shift my activism across a variety of spectrums. From racial justice and criminal justice reform to the environment. I have a totally different approach to activism.” -Alicia Roth Weigel
Weigel says that, now that she’s out, she’s found a harmonious balance between her identity as an activist and her intersex identity. Her activism has changed a lot, and she notes that coming out has made her much more emboldened and confident in fighting for justice and against the injustices that the intersex and LGBTQIA communities face. “It’s interesting because intersex is something that fits, but almost doesn’t fit, in the queer community,” Weigel says. “If you look at me, I look like this cis white girl who dates men, so people see me at queer events and they get confused. But for me, I do believe I’m fundamentally in between because I don’t believe in the binaries. If I’m in between, how can I be straight? There is no straight. Because of who I am, whoever I’m dating, it’s going to be a queer relationship. There’s something about the queer community. There’s an opportunity for us to hide our identities, but we’ve all made an active choice to come out. And that bonds us. That choice to come forward and be honest with ourselves about something that society says is wrong bonds us. And that applies to intersex people too, we’ve all had to come out in one way or another.”
“Marginalized communities in general understand that we might not understand what each other is going through, but it’s real, because no one chooses to be marginalized and no one chooses to undergo systemic oppression,” she adds. “So allowing myself to own my identity has allowed me to shift my activism across a variety of spectrums. From racial justice and criminal justice reform to the environment. I have a totally different approach to activism.”
Many within minority communities believe that it is a civic duty to not only vote, but be politically involved. Weigel, however, believes that this duty more so belongs to non-minorities and the more privileged members of society—that they are the ones that should be using their positions of power to fight and advocate for marginalized communities. “Of course I believe a movement should be led by people who have experienced what they’re fighting for, but there is a strong opportunity for allyship,” she says. “I’m choosing to elect Danielle Skidmore to be the first openly trans person elected in Texas, rather than run myself, for example. There’s no marginalization competition, but sometimes you need to lift up those who have been more marginalized than you have. I think everyone needs to think a little more like that.”
Keep up with Alicia Roth Weigel at xoxyalicia.com and on Instagram and Twitter. Plus, check out her New York Times Opinion piece on intersex erasure under the Trump administration. For more information on Danielle Skidmore’s campaign, visit danielleforall.com.
