Herculine Barbin, who was later known as Abel Barbin, was a French intersex person who is remembered due to their autobiography which was later discovered and studied by philosopher Michel Foucault.
Their birth date is remembered as Intersex Day of Solidarity, or Intersex Day of Remembrance.
To their family their were known an Alexina. Barbin was assigned female at birth and raised as female, but did not experience puberty as expected, and began to develop facial hair. Their family was poor but she gained a scholarship that allowed them to study at a convent.
When they were seventeen they began training to be a teacher, and began to have an affair with another teacher named Sara.
Barbin struggled with their health, and in 1860 doctors discovered that they were, what would be referred to today as, intersex. Their sex was legally changed to male and they began using the name Abel.
Barbin left their profession and their lover, and moved to Paris. Here they began writing their autobiography examining their life and gender journey. In those writings Barbin used female pronouns for the period of their life before their diagnosis, and male pronouns afterwards.
Scholars have noted that the writing also sees Barbin share their view that they considered themselves to be female.
She died in 1968, her death attributed to suicide. Her memoirs were found next to her bed. They remained relatively unknown until Foucault discovered them in the archives of the French Department of Hygiene in the 1970s.
The memoir inspired the 1985 film The Mystery of Alexina, and also prompted author Jeffrey Eugenides to write his Pulitzer Prize winning 2002 novel Middlesex.
There’s also a lot of evidence to suggest that musician Prince based his female alter-ego character Camille after being inspired by Barbin. Many playwrights have also written works about Barbin, or included her as a character in their works. In 2023 the opera Alexina B by Raquel Garcia-Thomas had it’s debut.
