Museum reclassifies Roman emperor as trans woman

Oh FFS. In the article there's one sensible historian talking about the way references to femininity were used to demean enemies and a completely unqualified idiot---- person saying TW. Fed up of these attempts to rewrite history assuming that everyone lives in 2023.

Just to add nothing to the conversation, (the actor) Tom Holland’s pater is Dom Holland. Presumably his mater is Mom Holland…unless she goes by ‘Mr’…

I am glad to see historians are speaking up and pointing out the source of the claim he was trans is literally a well known example of character assassination Roman propaganda

There seem to be a lot of people who think that political propaganda, character assassination of your enemies and imputation to them of any and every sexual vice is a new thing.

On the plus side, the BBC article itself used accurate pronouns throughout.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/24/was-roman-emperor-elagabalus-really-trans-and-does-it-really-matter

well this is better

The pretty picture is probably 'The Roses of Heliogabalus' by Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema (originally Lourens Alma Tadema), a Dutch artist who settled in London.

He was matey with the Pre-Raphaelites. His work was popular in his day, fell out of favour later and became fashionable again in the 1960s.

An article on this appeared on social media today. The comments were all, without exception, amused and exasperated, and spoke of patience now gone for all this.

Bad news: once you're a gonner your bones will instantly reveal the indisputable, inescapable fact of your sex.

Death is the great leveller. It doesn't give a shit about your innate sense of a 'gender' identity, and there's nothing you can do to 'cancel' it for its bigoted disregard of trans rights.

Death is the ultimate TERF.

They consulted Stonewall? That bit made me LOL!

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel I am so jealous. I would love to work for an independent. LA museum here and it is so hard to bite my tongue sometimes with some of the fashionable policies.

There will be a reason for wanting to change history I am just too tired today to work out what the long game is with them.

Well the tide is turning now so maybe dead people who can't object are the new targets.

Oh, was he that one? I've got a rather nice picture of that 'event'. Looks very pretty. Doubt it happened - but then...Caligula...Tiberius....nutjobs in general....

Well done for sticking it out.
I just do freelance and volunteering I enjoy for very carefully selected organisations these days. Independent museums/trusts and historic houses tend to be a lot less bound by fashionable policies and can still be just as innovative and forward looking, while retaining a much clearer idea of what their actual purpose is. Local authority museums are a lost cause imo. University museums might recover one day but only if universities manage to sort themselves out.

Transing the dead seems to be fashionable.

William Ferguson: How Trans Rights Activists Are Declaring The Dead "Trans" As They're No Longer With Us And Can't Object To The Anachronism

https://williamaferguson.substack.com/p/trans-out-your-dead?s=r

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel I know it's so sad. As someone who works in heritage and museum education it is sad and shocking how few staff in the decision making roles have any passion let alone qualifications in history, archeology or classics. Lots of us boots on the ground have a passion for and qualifications related to history, archeology, classics ect. The marketing directors and those "spokespeople" for the museum are the worst for having no passion or appreciation for the past, they just like to posture in front of the camera claiming to represent the newest SJW fad.

Pronouns declensions, eh?

'I decline pronouns.'

Yep, that works.

They chose the most perverse, bloodthirsty and dangerous Roman Emperor other than Caligula.

Quite fitting tbh.

They can have him!

I fell out of love with academic Classics in the early 00s when West Coast scholars started applying Butlerian theories of gender to sexual relations in acnient Greece and Rome. Total bullshit and non-empirical but the notions still float around the academy.

I'll stick with re-reading the Odyssey and give academic Classics, and the trans-ing of Classics, the middle finger.

My husband once sang 'Man, I feel like a woman' at a karaoke night. I think it would be kind to change his pronouns for him now. I think that's the rule, right? If a man, under any circumstances, declares that he is a woman even one time then get it on his fucking gravestone

Also, Eddie Izzard specifically stated that he didn't mind people calling him 'he' and 'Eddie' (grabbing the highest privileges afforded to both sexes in one fell swoop but you know, putting that aside) so WTF do people insist on 'honouring' his ridiculous alter-ego pronouns in serious articles? I was speaking to a friend (ex-friend perhaps) and she told me off for calling him Eddie, and told me I was being hateful. HE SAID HE DIDN'T MIND

Well fuck all that shit I'm out

I guess one of the silver linings of being entirely unremarkable and unknown in public life is that no one is going to trans me in a couple of thousand years.

I think so @HelenaRavenclaw . Unfortunately I’ve given my copy of Emperor away but she expressed it in terms of “these emperors, you never know where you are with them”.

This.

Thanks. I'm even more confused now! 😁