UK Museum Declares That One Roman Emperor Was Transgender

An obscure Roman emperor from the second century AD is now to be referred to as transgender, according to one UK museum in North Hertfordshire. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known as Elagabalus, will hereafter be referred to as a woman, with female pronouns "she" and "her."

The controversy surrounding the gender identity of Elagabalus is not new. Scholars have been debating the subject for decades. But the North Hertfordshire Museum consulted the highest historical authorities on the matter: the LGBT advocacy group Stonewall and the LGBT wing of the trade union Unison.

So that settles that.

Not really, of course. Elagabalus, a Syrian by birth, ruled from 218 AD to 222 AD, when he was assassinated. As in cases like this, the winners get to write the history. There is plenty of evidence that hatred of Elagabalus resulted in denigrating the manhood of the assassinated Emporer as a way to justify his killing.

Times of London:

However, some historians argue that Dio’s account should not be taken at face value. Instead, they point to the fact that the chronicler served the emperor Severus Alexander, who succeeded Elagabalus and suggest that reports of his deviant behaviour might have been used as justification for the killing.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, a Cambridge classics professor, said: “The Romans didn’t have our idea of ‘trans’ as a category, but they used accusations of sexual behaviour ‘as a woman’ as one of the worst insults against men.”

He added that, as Elagabalus was Syrian and not Roman, “there’s racial prejudice going on there too”.

Keith Hoskins, a Liberal Democrat councilor and executive member for arts at North Herts Council, said: “Elagabalus most definitely preferred the ‘she’ pronoun, and as such this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times.”

“We try to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past, as we are for people in the present, it is only polite and respectful."

“We know that Elagabalus identified as a woman and was explicit about which pronouns to use, which shows that pronouns are not a new thing.”

It would be "polite and respectful" only if it were true. Otherwise, it's stupid and insulting, which is exactly what contemporary chroniclers of Elagabalus wanted to be.

Professor Christian Laes, a University of Manchester classicist, said that ancient accounts of the emperor’s life should be taken with “a huge pinch of salt”, adding: “Most of this is related to the aristocratic and senatorial disdain for the emperor’s oriental origins and beliefs.

“As regards trans, this was of course never seen as a category by the Romans, but it remains the case that in times of troubles and crisis, so-called transgressors of the sexual norms were subject to scapegoating.”

When supposedly serious historians and a credible museum director consult a gay advocacy group and the LGBT wing of a union to make a fraught decision about the gender identity of a man who lived 2,000 years ago, you can see how deeply the delusion has penetrated society.