The North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin has made the remarkable discovery, known to historians only since the 9th century AD, that the Roman emperor Elagabalus was a sexual pervert who liked to be called ‘she’ and offered vast sums to any doctor who could kit him out with female sex organs. In celebration of such a visionary, the museum has decided to describe him as a ‘transgender woman’ in their display of a coin minted during his reign (AD 218-222). The museum had better be careful what it wishes for.
One could go on, but even this very short extract from his life suggests he does not make the best model for the trans, or any other, ‘community’
Elagabalus became emperor at the age of 14 when he was already being debauched by men and ‘being on heat, the recipient of lust in every orifice of his body’, according to the Augustan History. His main interest seems to have been searching out men with large genitals and assigning them to official posts in relation to size. At
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