Alicia Roth Weigel tells the story of her life thus far as an intersex person, activist, and political organizer. Each chapter is an essay shaped around a tattoo Alicia has gotten.

The most impactful portions for me were the ones in which she discusses the medical trauma intersex people face and her traveling exploits. I liked that Alicia didn’t tame herself and her beliefs to make people feel more comfortable. I can see how that would lead to more conservative readers throwing the baby out with the bath water and not receive any of what Alicia went through as an intersex child which to me is vital for all people to understand.

It's a season for memoirs about growing up intersex: I read "Nobody Needs to Know" by Pidgeon Pagonis (mentioned in "Inverse Cowgirl", because the intersex advocacy world is small) earlier this year, and with Weigel adding her voice to the mix, I hope this heralds an era in which intersex people feel that they can talk more freely about their experiences.

This is likely one where how much you enjoy the book will depend largely on how well you connect with the authorial voice. Words that come to mind: punchy, chatty, rapid-fire, manifesto, y'all. (Tattoos.) Weigel comes in swinging and never really stops—she's quick to call out structures (and individuals within those structures) doing, and perpetuating, damage to her community, and as quick to call out her own privileges and shortcomings and learning experiences. Formally, this is a memoir in essays (with a common theme of the experiences that led Weigel to her tattoos), but I'd posit that a lot of context would be lost if you tried to read any of the essays solo.

Two things that I really would have liked from this book: first, Weigel focuses heavily on her advocacy and political work, especially later in the book, and as a reader that's something that I've never been very interested in. No criticism of the work itself, obviously, just that it tends to read to me as "and then I did this thing and then I met that amazing person" (perhaps reflective of the exhausting nature of campaigns and advocacy work). I would have been interested to see her talk more about things like HRT—a necessity when your reproductive organs have been removed, but a necessity with consequences, such as loss of bone density and spending your life on medication that insurance might well not pay for. I'd have loved to read more about knowing she had a "condition" but not knowing the word "intersex" until she was in her twenties(!!), and knowing related family history. In the latter case, I doubt she could have gone far while maintaining privacy, and I respect that, but my *gosh* that would be a fascinating line of inquiry.

The second thing I really would have loved is a direct exploration of the intersections between sex and gender, and what it means to Weigel to be intersex and also to firmly apply the label of "woman". Weigel touches on this a little, but it sounds like she (luckily) never had to question her gender identity, which might have been interesting to discuss. This might be an area in which I'd like to see more science—I really don't have a sense of how often assigned gender (or assigned sex!) feels true to someone whose body, as Pagonis puts it in "Nobody Needs to Know", "chose intersex" rather than "boy" or "girl". And perhaps the science simply isn't there—Weigel notes, after all, that there's a dearth of knowledge on how intersex bodies develop in the absence of, e.g., nonconsensual childhood surgeries, but as far as I can tell there's just a dearth of knowledge on the personal experiences of intersex people in general, because it's a topic that's so long been taboo. (Ooh, can someone please curate a book of essays by intersex folks with varying experiences and from varying generations and locations?)

Overall, an interesting look at an experience that isn't talked about enough, and hopefully one of many voices sharing stories about this in the next years.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

The author jokes that she is “a vibe” and not everyone’s cup of tea, which I would agree with, but I found the book very informative - I’d never read or really even heard much about intersex folks before this. It took me a bit to get past the abrasive tone of the book, but if my whole life I was shoved into a box that wasn’t meant for me, I’m sure I’d be abrasive too. I know I am abrasive when talking about the social Justice issues that fire me up, so it’s probably a window into what it’s like to talk to me too. Overall, I enjoyed learning about the intersex struggles and bookmarked other things to look into as well. I appreciate that she bared so much of her soul and shared so many of her stories.

I really wanted to love this book, as the author's work as an activist is so important, but the writing style and format wasn't very readable.

“Inverse Cowgirl” is a memoir written in a series of essays about the life of an intersex woman, activist and political organizer as she finds herself amid a life of struggle and giving back to others.

The title refers to the slur “reverse cowgirl” which is used to demean intersex people. By calling it “inverse” the author is reclaiming its power.

I’m a liberal and the author’s way more leftist than I am. I found parts got preachy on Marxist talking points about power structures that leftism is in love with but I don’t always agree with. But I expected this from a leftist grassroots organizer in Austin, Texas. Even if I didn’t always agree with her, I found the trajectory of Alicia’s life fascinating and the experience of being an intersex woman intriguing. She really is Hurricane Alicia.

At times the essays summarized rather than showing her life story which got kind of hard to read, but with a life that rich and with so many interesting experiences in love, travel, adventure and overcoming trauma first through youthful hard partying, hypersexuality and substance abuse and later to throwing herself into activism, how do you pick which scenes to show?

I also didn’t know about the childhood experiences of intersex people with the medical community and the ways these experiences could be used to vouch for trans rights and abortion access. The author was born with XY chromosones and an internal testes which was removed when she was a baby because doctors claimed it might be cancerous. As a result she was forcibly sterilized and had to be on hormone therapy for life, which led to early onset osteoporosis at age 32.

This was a fascinating collection of essays from an amazing and very brave intersex woman who has lived an intriguing life of unflagging integrity.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I had such high hopes for this book, the cover and title are fantastic. Don't get me wrong - I learned a lot. But the writing style felt almost like a speech, or a casual rambling conversation in an "I need to get her to stop talking sort of way" some parts were really interesting and informative and then some parts felt like they jumped all over the place for no good reason. It felt too casual and too nonlinear for me to really get into it. I am not judging the person's life - I am just not a fan of the writing style at all.

Thank you to net galley, the author and publisher for the ARC