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Eddie Izzard opens up about decision to announce use of she/her pronouns
’In two days in America and Britain, where I’m best known, all my pronouns were changed,’ she said
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Eddie Izzard has shared the unexpected way she decided to reveal she had changed her pronouns to she/her.
In December 2020, Izzard appeared on Sky Arts series Portrait Artist of the Year, in which the show’s host Stephen Mangan and contestants referred to Izzard using feminine pronouns.
According to Izzard, she had been asked by artists featured on the series if she preferred to be called he/him or she/her, having not been widely acknowledged as the latter.
“I didn’t change my pronouns – I was thinking of changing them,” Izzard, 60, said on podcast My Seven Wonders with Clive Anderson.
Izzard, who described herself as being “gender fluid”, recalled: “I went on a programme called Portrait Artist of the Year, Sky Arts, very nice, go on there.
“Some young artists painting me, they ask me, like a coffee thing, they said, ‘She/her or he/him?’ I was wearing a dress and I’m based as a trans woman now, so, ‘She/her, I’ll have a latte.’ It was that kind of lack of stress.”
Izzard said that, following the episode’s broadcast, “in two days in America and Britain, where I’m best known, all my pronouns were changed,” which she called “fantastic, a great honour”.
Izzard, who said she has been “promoted to she”, explained: “I prefer she/her, don’t mind he/him, and I’m going to be relaxed about it. It’s not the time for fighting each other on this.’
A month after the episode aired, Izzard got tearful on ITV’s Lorraine when host Lorraine Kelly supported her gender-fluidity.
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Kelly told Izzard: “You’re a fantastic woman and a fantastic human being. Thank so so much and good luck with all that you’re doing,” to which Izzard replied: “And thank you for being so supportive… you really have been so supportive. It’s great that you’re there – you’re a very good person.”