Legendary British stand-up comedian and actress Eddie Izard—known for such movies as Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen, and her role in FX’s short-lived series The Riches—announced she would be adding a second name to her moniker. “I’m Eddie,” she explained on Matt Forde’s podcast Political Party. “There’s another name I’m going to add in as well, which is Suzy, which I wanted to be since I was 10. I’m going to be Suzy Eddie Izzard.”
According to a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Izzard first came out as transgender in the 1980s. But, in that interview, she described herself as still having both a “boy and girl mode.” According to British Comedy Guide, Izzard announced she was using she/her pronouns exclusively in an appearance on a British TV show called Portrait Artist of the Year. “I just want to be based in girl mode from now on,” she says on the show.
However, in a 2021 interview with The Telegraph, Izzard insisted she still used both he/him and she/her pronouns. She said then that she hadn’t actually intended to announce she was using she/her exclusively. In the interview with Political Party, Izzard seemed to take a slight step back from that. Izzard said she prefers she/her pronouns, but will accept he/him.
Despite being a trans pioneer and activist, Izzard has become somewhat of a polarizing figure within the trans community. In the 2017 Hollywood Reporter interview, she praised conservative, transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner as a role model for trans youth. However, Izzard admitted of Jenner, “her politics are not so good.”
Additionally, in the 2021 Telegraph interview, Izzard claimed that embattled Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is not transphobic. “I don’t think J.K. Rowling is transphobic. I think we need to look at the things she has written about in her blog. Women have been through such hell over history. Trans people have been invisible, too. I hate the idea we are fighting between ourselves, but it’s not going to be sorted with the wave of a wand. I don’t have all the answers. If people disagree with me, fine—but why are we going through hell on this?”
While Rowling and her supporters also claim that the author is not transphobic, according to Entertainment Weekly, the essay Rowling wrote on her personal website was slammed by GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. Ellis describes the essay as a “misinformed and dangerous missive about transgender people” that Ellis says “flies in the face of medical and psychological experts and devalues trans people(s’) accounts of their own lives.” And, given the wording in the essay, it requires some mental gymnastics to pretend that Rowling’s tirade is not transphobic. “I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it,” Rowling famously writes in one of her more controversial statements.
Still, despite Izzard’s controversial status amongst her own community, Pink News reports that fans are showing support for Izzard finally getting to use a name she’s wanted to use since childhood. “I love you Suzy Eddie Izzard, you’re making me find joy and hope for the future,” wrote @blackadlerqueen on Twitter. Similarly @theFoxFisher wrote, “Suzy Izzard’s journey to being herself is heartwarming. It’s never too late to be happy.”
