Herculine Barbin

His life comes to light with the publication of his autobiography Memoirs of Herculine Adelaide Barbin. He details about the family economic hardship and how much it cost to get a scholarship to study at the school of Ursuline convent. The accounts say he fell in loved a friend at school aristocrat. He didn´t consider to like her, but found the way to creep into her room and she used to be punished for it. Herculine finished his studies in the convent in 1856 y went on to study teaching at Le Chateau, where fell in loved of a teacher

Although there were past puberty had no menstruation, her chest was flat and he shaved his mustache, beard and arms In 1857, Herculine got a job as a teacher in a girls' school. He fell in loved another teacher,Sara, with whom he had an affair, so that rumors began to circulate. Moreover, following intense pain went to a doctor, but he was horrified by what he saw on auscultation.

Barbin confessed to the bishop of La Rochelle J-F. Landriot and he asked to break the seal of confession to request a medical examination A doctor surnamed Chesnet examination was performed in 1860 and found that Barbin had a small vagina, a masculine body, a small penis and testicles inside the body.

A subsequent legal determination that Barbin was officially handed male. He left his lover, his work and changed his name to Abel Barbin, a fact that was mentioned in the newspapers of the time.

Later he moved to Paris, where he began writing his memoirs while he lived in poverty. In February 1868, the doorman of his building on the rue de l'Ecole-de-Médecine found his body had killed herself with cooking gas and their memories were at the bedside

His story became known especially when reissued in 1980 Michel Foucault devoted his memoirs and an introductory study. Thereafter Barbin has become a constant reference of different moments of Foucault's work.