How did gender norms in 19th century France affect Herculine herself? What about her relationships with others, especially Sara?
Comprehend how sex has been purposefully conflated with gender to promote the gender binary as we know it, later aiding in the spread of the heterosexual matrix (coined by Judith Butler). By understanding how sex has been medicalized and socially constructed to sustain a clear dichotomy between masculinity and femininity, readers can then use Smith-Rosenberg’s work on homosociality to understand why Herculine’s relationship with Sara was so socially taboo and even legally undermined—because Herculine identified as and wanted to be with Sara as an intersex woman.
Butler, J. (2006). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Taylor & Francis Group.
Dreger, A. (1997). Doctors Containing Hermaphrodites: The Victorian Legacy. Intersex Society of North America. https://isna.org/books/chrysalis/dreger/
Smith-Rosenberg, C. (1975). The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between women in Nineteenth-Century America. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1(1), 189–202.
Foucault, M. (1980). Reports. In R. McDougall (Trans.) Herculine Barbin: being the recently discovered memoirs of a nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite (pp. 122-144). Vintage Books