Herculine Barbin was an intersex woman born in 1838. Unlawfully in love with another woman, she was forced to live as a man because of a judge's orders, after a doctor found her to be intersex, and her homosexual behaviors were brought forth. Upon this legal change of her sex, Barbin's name was also changed, and she was referred as either Camille or Abel. In 1868, Barbin died by suicide due to her poverty, gender and sexuality troubles and the false persona she was forced to maintain. He noted that the legal efforts in the 1860s and 1870s to control
gender identity occurred despite centuries of comparative acceptance of
hermaphroditism. During the
Middle Ages, Foucault wrote, hermaphrodites were viewed as people who had an amalgamation of masculine and feminine traits. When they reached adulthood, hermaphrodites in the Middle Ages were allowed to decide whether they wanted to be male or female. However, this procedure was abandoned in later times, when scientists decided that each person only had one real gender. When a person demonstrated the physical or mental traits of the opposite sex, such aberrations were deemed random or inconsequential. ==Responses==