this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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History Memes

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 41 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Explanation: The Roman Emperor Elagabalus was noted for having an... atypical gender presentation at the time. It's commonly accepted nowadays that Elagabalus was probably trans or NB as we would recognize it in the modern day, asking to be called the feminine form of address, wearing women's clothing, marrying men and women, and offering half the Empire (!!!) for a good SRS doc. As with all matters historical, the details are always up for debate, though, especially the reliability of the sources and the applicability of modern labels to pre-modern individuals.

Unfortunately, they were not good rep, as they were a teenager who was given sudden control of an entire Empire and all of its fabulous wealth and potential for abuse, and used that as one might expect a teenager to do.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

why did people just keep doing that lol, surely all the people with power should go "hey guys maybe let's find an excuse to not make a child the emperor?"

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

In Elagabalus's case, it was more "We don't like the current Emperor, so we'll take any excuse to start a civil war and place this TOTALLY pliant and obedient puppet on the throne"

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 23 points 5 days ago

The two correct answers:

No, because "trans" is a modern cultural concept that they didn't have at the time. It's like asking "was Vercingetorix punk?"

And the other answer is: Yes, because use your eyes.

[–] kartoffelsaft@programming.dev 4 points 5 days ago

So who's gonna write the Elagabalus/Sporus fanfic