The North Hertfordshire Museum has said it will be “sensitive” to the purported pronoun preferences of the third century BCE Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, better known by his nicknames Elagabalus and Heliogabalus (from 218 to 222), and treat the emperor as a transgender woman to be referred to as she. In the full Telegraph report, Craig Simpson confirms that the museum consults the LGBT charity Stonewall and the LGBT wing of the trade union Unison on best practice for its displays.
Elagabalus had a short reign which was notorious for sex scandals and religious controversy.
Since the reign of Septimius Severus, sun worship had increased throughout the Empire. At the end of 220, Elagabalus instated the Arab–Roman sun god and God of the Mountain Elagabal as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon, possibly on the date of the winter solstice.
Acknowledged as emperor by the Senate, Bassianus, by virtue of his priestly function, became generally known as Elagabalus. He tried to impose the worship of Baal upon the Roman world, executed a number of dissident generals, and pushed into high places many favourites distinguished by personal beauty and humble and alien origins.
The first crisis of his regime occurred when he divorced his wife to marry the Vestal Virgin Aquilia Severa and declared this union to be a “sacred marriage,” like Baal’s mating with Juno Caelestis. He was persuaded by Julia Maesa, the real power in the government, to adopt his docile cousin Alexander as his son and heir (221) and to divorce Aquilia in favour of a match with a descendant of Marcus Aurelius, Annia Faustina. When Elagabalus changed his mind and sought to depose Alexander and resume his relationship with Aquilia, the Praetorian Guards mutinied, killed Elagabalus and his mother, and made Alexander emperor. {Encyc. Brit.}
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