Museum classifies Roman emperor as trans – but modern labels oversimplify ancient gender identities

I would argue that labeling her as trans is the opposite of western chauvanism. So many of the purported "third genders" that anthropologists write about in other countries are just regular-ass trans people. Look at the "hijra" (the term itself a slur comparable to the worst western slurs.) The vast majority of these people identify as binary women and seek out the same medical treatments western trans people do. "Third genders" in non-western cultures are typically labeled as such by outsiders, not the actual members of those "third genders." Mostly it's bigoted western academics not wanting to admit that trans people are a universality. They portray trans people living in other cultures as othered-third genders, instead of the binary identities the vast majority of such labeled people live as. Are there actual nonbinary people in these "third genders?" Sure. But the vast majority of "third genders" are binary trans people mislabeled by bigoted western academics.

And really, there is absolutely nothing wrong with labeling Elagablus as trans. Yes, it's true that we can't be exactly sure which modern identity Elagablus would identify as if she were brought to the present. But that's just how considering anything about any historical figures works. For all we know Julius Caesar was trans and just never told anyone. We can never be completely certain about anything in the deep past.

Are the taxonomies we use for trans identities the same as ancient cultures? Of course not. Hell, in western culture we tend to reinvent the trans taxonomy once per generation. But trans identities in some form have been documented going back thousands of years. Whether our labels map perfectly to theirs is irrelevant. You wouldn't balk at labeling an ancient person as a merchant, even though merchants in our modern world have completely different jobs than those of ancient Rome. A Roman Senator has a very different job from a US Senator. Roman Senators would hardly recognize modern senators as such. Yet we have no problem calling them Senators. Yet when trans people are involved, suddenly we can only label an ancient person as trans if they perfectly map onto modern trans categories. It's bigotry, nothing more. Denying our people their history because the historical existence of trans people offends cis people.

Now, you won't be able to rule out that Elagabalus, if brought forward to today, would actually identify as a binary trans woman. Perhaps she would identify as one of the NB identities. But just because we can't get it perfectly right doesn't mean we should abandon clear examples of historical trans people.

Your question should not be, "can we be absolutely certain Elagabalus was trans?" That is the absolute wrong question to ask, as we can never know anything in the past with perfect certainty. The question you should instead ask is, "is the evidence that Elagabalus was trans of comparable quality to the claims of similar historical figures that we accept without question?"

It's infuriating seeing a far higher standard of proof applied to historical trans identities than any other characteristic.

Couldn’t the same argument be made about assumptions they are cis or straight?

Maaaaan, the author can fuck off with this stuff. This is just erasure.