Boy, every time I think The Great Stupid has peaked, something like this arrives…

The North Hertfordshire Museum has decreed that the 3rd-century AD Roman emperor Elagabalus should be referred to as “she” to be sensitive to his pronoun preferences.

The museum in Hitchin, England owns a coin minted during the reign of Elagabalus and includes it in LGBT-themed displays. (Don’t ask me why a museum has LGBT-themed displays). Because the Roman historian Cassius Di wrote that Elagabalus was “termed wife, mistress and queen, ” told one lover, “Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady,” and allegedly inquired about how he could be outfitted with female charms, the museum is persuaded that he would consider himself “transgender” in 2023. (As well as really, really dead.) Prior to this Great Stupid brainstorm by the museum, historians have assumed that Dio was just smearing the predecessor of his patron, Emperor Severus Alexander, who gained power after the mad Elagabalus, was assassinated.

Oh, he was crazy, all right. A teenage despot, Elagabalus played such “practical jokes” as ordering several of his guests at a banquet to be lashed to a water-wheel, which slowly drowned them while their luckier fellow diners looked on. At another feast, he released hungry leopards and lions on his guests after they had finished eating. The kid was a laugh riot. On another occasion, he secretly let poisonous snakes loose among the crowds at his gladiatorial games. Of course, these accounts might be apocryphal too, but there is little doubt that Elagabalus made his predecessors Nero and Caligula look relatively benign.

With a debate ongoing about whether transgenderism is a symptom of mental illness, it is strange that trans activists would want to claim this sociopath as one of their own. Nonetheless, Keith Hoskins, a member of the North Herts Council that manages the museum, says “Elagabalus most definitely preferred the ‘she’ pronoun and as such this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times.”

Uh, but he did not live in contemporary times, you silly person. Romans had no concept of gender-switching; it had cross-dressers and homosexuals. Gays have playfully referred to each other as “she” and “her” for a long, long time: the device is used in such shows as “The Boys in the Band” and “La Cage Au Faux,” as well as in “Blazing Saddles” and “The Producers.” I’ve witnessed this in person too many times to count (life in the theater, you know). It doesn’t mean that the speaker or the object of the feminine pronoun actually consider themselves female. This is bonkers.

And the Great Stupid washes over the land…