18 Facts About Herculine Barbin

Herculine Barbin is known for her memoir, Herculine Barbin, which was studied by Michel Foucault.

Herculine Barbin's birthday is marked as Intersex Day of Remembrance.

Herculine Barbin was assigned as female and raised as such; her family named her Alexina.

Herculine Barbin's family was poor but she gained a charity scholarship to study in the school of an Ursuline convent.

Herculine Barbin regarded herself as unattractive but sometimes slipped into her friend's room at night and was sometimes punished for it.

Herculine Barbin's studies were successful and in 1856, at the age of 17, she was sent to Le Chateau to study to become a teacher.

In 1857, Herculine Barbin received a position as an assistant teacher in a girls' school.

Herculine Barbin fell in love with another teacher named Sara.

Herculine Barbin asked Barbin's permission to break the confessional silence in order to send for a doctor to examine her.

When Dr Chesnet did so in 1860, he discovered that although Herculine Barbin had a small vagina, she had a masculine body type, a very small penis, and testicles inside her body.

Herculine Barbin left her lover and her job, changed her name to Abel Barbin and was briefly mentioned in the press.

Herculine Barbin moved to Paris where she lived in poverty and wrote her memoirs, reputedly as a part of therapy.

Nevertheless, Herculine Barbin clearly regarded herself as punished, and "disinherited", subject to a "ridiculous inquisition".

Herculine Barbin had died by suicide by inhaling gas from her coal gas stove.

Herculine Barbin had the journals republished as Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite.

Herculine Barbin's memoirs inspired the French film The Mystery of Alexina.

Herculine Barbin appears as a character in the play A Mouthful of Birds by Caryl Churchill and David Lan.

Herculine Barbin appears as a character in the play Hidden: A Gender by Kate Bornstein.