‘Learning to pee through a funnel.’ Intersex activist mocks Texas bill defining gender
An activist says she’s learning to pee through a funnel so she can join Texas politicians when they use urinals.
The stunt mocks a new bill that would define sex based on chromosomes, which critics say would erase transgender and intersex people entirely.
‘By trying to fix me, they broke me’
You wouldn’t know it from her outward appearance (as you wouldn’t with many intersex people), but Alicia Roth Weigel was born with a combination of sex characteristics that don’t fit into the “typical binary notions of male or female bodies,” Austin Woman Magazine reported in December 2021, when Weigel was the cover model on that month’s issue.
In Weigel’s case, she was born with an XY chromosome combination and internal testes that were removed from her body when she was young, the outlet reported. The process prevented her body from naturally producing its own estrogen, she told the magazine.
“By trying to fix me, they broke me, essentially,” she told the magazine at the time. “You are isolated by this label that you are given. Because that label is seen as a pathology, it’s seen as a negative medical trait. That immediately puts them in the mode of trying to fix you. When what you really realize is there was nothing wrong with you in the first place.”
Weigel didn’t realize she was intersex until she read about another intersex person’s experience when she was 27, she told the outlet. Her body’s anatomy, and the reason she had to take hormones as a child, was explained to her as “complete androgen insensitivity,” she told the magazine. She explained that while she was in utero, she developed a vagina but no womb or other internal sex organs associated with the female reproductive system.
‘Learning to pee through a funnel’
That’s why Weigel is firing back at an anti-trans bill recently proposed in Texas’ legislature. She posted an Instagram photo with a funnel that people with vaginas sometimes use to urinate while standing up or when toilets aren’t available.
“Brb, learning to pee through a funnel to join @governorabbott at the urinals this session…” she wrote.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Rep. Steve Toth, the bill’s sponsor in the House of Representatives, did not immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment.
The bill would require someone’s gender to be based on their chromosome combination. Under the bill’s language, Weigel says her XY chromosome combination would classify her as a male.
House Bill 1952 is titled “An Act relating to the required inclusion of a person’s sex on a birth certificate.” The text says birth certificate forms “must include a space for recording the biological sex of a child as either male or female. A child born with a Y chromosome must be classified as male and a child born without a Y chromosome must be classified as female.”
Weigel and a gynecologist will talk about the bill and how it will affect trans and intersex people’s bodies during an Instagram Live on Thursday, Feb. 9.
“It’s obvious no medical professionals were involved in the drafting of HB1952’s attack on trans and intersex Texans so @karentangmd and I have taken the *liberty* to help clarify some things for our dear Texas legislators…” Weigel wrote in a tweet.
Karen Tang, the director of the Center for Gynecologic Surgery and a public speaker, replied and said “Guess I need to travel around the country teaching politicians how bodies work?” and told readers they could join them on Instagram Live at 8 p.m. ET.
This story was originally published February 9, 2023 at 2:06 PM with the headline "‘Learning to pee through a funnel.’ Intersex activist mocks Texas bill defining gender."
