Eddie Izzard clarifies personal feelings on gender fluidity
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Eddie Izzard has clarified her own feelings on gender fluidity after revealing late last year that she wants "to be based in girl mode from now on", having said that starting to use female pronouns felt "great".
The comedian is currently completing an epic marathon challenge, aiming to run 31 marathons (on a treadmill) and perform 31 stand-up comedy gigs in 31 days in order to raise money for various charities as part of the Make Humanity Great Again campaign.
Izzard is live-streaming her marathons, sharing extracts of them on Twitter, and being joined virtually by a host of celebrity guests, and while speaking to fellow comedian Matt Lucas she opened up about her feelings on pronouns.
Related: Game of Thrones' Kit Harington opens up about 'gender fluid' upbringing
Explaining that she uses the phrases "girl mode" and "boy mode" for herself because it's "the best (phrase) I've got", she reminded Lucas that she has been openly gender fluid "for 35 years" and that she has been doing shows "in girl mode" since 1991.
"It's a bit like the world said, 'Are you serious about this transgender after 35 years? We thought it was a tax dodge or something'. It was a bit like that," she said of her decision to make an official statement about being gender fluid, before going on to explain how she sees herself going forward.
"All my dramatic roles will be in boy mode and I will be running, I'll be doing comedy and I will be a political activist in girl mode," she said. "Up to my 50s I thought I was in boy mode, based in boy mode and expressing girl mode, so from now on I'm going to be based in girl mode expressing boy mode. I thought I'd switch that round.
"It sounds a little complicated but I'm just telling people the truth of how my head works and the genetic thing, getting closer and closer and narrowing down how the brain is coded."
Related: Sam Smith announces preferred gender pronouns are 'they/them'
She also clarified her preferred pronouns, saying that it is "great" if people can use 'she' and 'her' pronouns to refer to her but that otherwise she is happy for people to call her "Eddie" or "mate".
"A lot of people were very supportive, some people, maybe the usual suspects, were very negative," she said of her request for people to use female pronouns when speaking about her. "But since then I seem to have been promoted to 'she'."
Adding that people working on the set of an upcoming production she is starring in will be referring to her as 'she', she said: "That's wonderful and I am very honoured to have 'she' and 'her' pronouns. But if people say 'he' I don't mind. If they've got a problem just say Eddie, it just fits in."
Lucas then thanked Izzard for being so open about her feelings, saying that he feels he is "still learning" about gender fluidity himself.
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