Adélaïde Herculine Barbin

Brief biographical note about Adélaïde Herculine Barbin

Adélaïde Herculine Barbin was born November 8, 1838 in Saint-Jean-d’Angély
(Charente-Maritime) and officially registered as female. She spent her childhood
in an orphanage and later at the Ursilines convent of Chavagne.

Between 1856-1858 Herculine Barbin studied at Oléron’s Normal School and
received her degree. At 21 she became a school teacher and met Sara, the
youngest daughter of Mrs. Avril, the headmistress of the school. Gradually, the
friendship between the two girls turned to love. But, when acting on their
feelings for each other, Sara realized that Herculine was not made like most
girls. Herculine was forced to resign from her job and after a medical
examination required by the authorities who became involved in the matter, she
was then forced to live as a man. Herculine became Abel but when he returned to
the village, Mrs. Avril refused to let him see Sara. On a cold February day in
1868, Abel Barbin’s dead body was discovered, the victim of an apparent suicide
by carbon monoxide poisoning from the small stove in his apartment.

Herculine Barbin, one of the most famous intersexed persons in history,
makes us question whether we can live as we are with our difference. Her life
also forces us to question this world which has created standards which we are
obliged to try to meet or otherwise face rejection. The individual can exist
only by assimilation into these norms and being like everyone else. She lived a
life of absolute fear. The agony of seeing her terrible secret revealed. The
terror of having to pay for a mistake that she did not make and of the shame for
being who she was.

Suffering, endless suffering. He had to leave everyone he loved to plunge
into the cold depths of isolation. Her life is a great story of pure love,
fatally destroyed by ignorance and intolerance.

Curtis E. Hinkle

Founder, OII

Organisation Intersex International

About Intersex Folks, not the Gender Police

Intersexualite.org