Day 22 of pride.

Day 22 of pride.


Today we will be talking about a very important figure in history that cements the reality that transgender people have always existed.
Elagabalus the transgender Roman emperor/empress. For this post I will be using the preferred name and pronouns of the empress as much as possible. Below is a picture of what she really looked like, and a statue that she commissioned to show herself as what she wished she looked like. Please know a lot of the decisions by this empress were not well accepted in Roman society.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, c. 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nicknames "Elagabalus" and Heliogabalus, was Roman empress from 218 to 222, while she was still a teenager. Her short reign was conspicuous for sex scandals and religious controversy. Close relative to the Severan dynasty, she came from a prominent Arab family in Emesa (Homs), Syria, where since her early youth she served as head priest of the sun god Elagabal.
When Elagabalus was alive, a Roman statesman who kept close tabs on the lives of his emperors. In his writings, Cassius Dio notably referred to Elagabalus by feminine pronouns and states that the emperor wanted to marry a former male slave and charioteer named Hierocles. Dio stated that Elagabalus delighted in being called Hierocles’s mistress, wife, and queen. Officially, Elagabalus was married five times (and twice to the same woman) all before she was 18, although there were rumours she also married a man named Zoticus, an athlete from Smyrna.
During her reign, women were first allowed into the senate, and her mother and grandmother both received senatorial titles. They’re found on many coins and inscriptions, a rare honor for Roman women.
According to Dio, the Emperor/empress wore makeup and wigs and preferred to be addresses as “lady” instead of “lord”. It was also recorded that Elgabalus offered significant payments to any doctor who could give her the equivalent of a woman’s genitalia by means of a surgical incision. It is this detail that convinces some scholars to see Elagabalus as an early transgender figure.

Elagabalus was eventually assassinated, but her existence and desire to transition are undeniable.

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