ALEXINA B. (Raquel García-Tomás) Barcelona 2023 Lídia Vinyes-Curtis, Alicia Amo, Elena Copons, Xavier Sabata

The opera ‘Alexina B.’ is inspired by the life of Herculine Barbin, also called Alexina B., an intersex person born in 1838 in France.

Alexina detailed her life in an extremely moving account written in 1868 called Mes souvenirs. At birth, she was designated as female and grew up exclusively among girls: at first, as a pupil in a religious school and later as a young teacher in a boarding school. In this latter position, she fell in love with Sara, one of her fellow teachers. This romance shone through some years and led her to affirm herself as a man. After several confessions to religious authorities and medical examinations, the law accepted her gender as masculine and officially recognised Alexina as a man, changing her identity to Abel Barbin. But this gender change did not bring him happiness and, in his loneliness, Abel Barbin ended up committing suicide.

It should be noted that, in a society in which heterosexuality seemed the only valid option, Alexina assumed that she was a man from the moment that she started having sexual relations with Sara. This fact led her, paradoxically, to lose Sara, as in their world –that of the boarding school– only women were admitted.

This is a story of the struggle for an identity which takes place between masculine and feminine. The violence of the religious and medical institutions, which could not accept a duality of sex or gender, should not make us forget the great power of decision and self-affirmation shown by Alexina, whose life is emblematic for today’s intersex community.