A Roman emperor from the third century, who has a display at the North Hertfordshire Museum in the United Kingdom, has been reclassified as a transgender woman.

The museum said the decision to change emperor Elagabalus’ pronouns was made after classical texts say the emperor once said, “call me not Lord, for I am a Lady,” according to the BBC. The museum said it will now refer to Elagabalus with the pronouns she/her.

“We try to be sensitive to identifying pronouns for people in the past, as we are for people in the present, it is only polite and respectful,” Keith Hoskins, executive member for Enterprise and Arts at North Herts Council, said to the Telegraph. “We know that Elagabalus identified as a woman and was explicit about which pronouns to use, which shows that pronouns are not a new thing.”

The museum has one coin of the emperor, which they have displayed with other LGBTQ+ items in a collection.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known by the nickname Elagabalus, reigned from 218 to 222 A.D. while still a teenager. Elagabalus was notoriously known for sex scandals and religious controversy.

The emperor was married multiple times — four times to women and once to a male slave named Hiercoles.

Cassius Dio, a senator and contemporary of the emperor, wrote of his final marriage that he “was bestowed in marriage and was termed wife, mistress and queen.”

Discourse surrounding Elagabalus’ gender identity has been around for a long time and is often divisive between academics.

“The historians we use to try and understand the life of Elagabalus are extremely hostile towards him, and therefore cannot be taken at face value. We don’t have any direct evidence from Elagabalus himself of his own words,” Shushma Malik, a classics professor at Cambridge University, told BBC.

“References to Elagabalus wearing makeup, wigs and removing body hair may have been written in order to undermine the unpopular emperor,” she said.

Mr. Hoskins, however, told the outlet that certain texts provide evidence “that Elagabalus most definitely preferred the ‘she’ pronoun and as such this is something we reflect when discussing her in contemporary times, as we believe is standard practice elsewhere.”

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.