Eddie Izzard has said she would not try to be selected as an MP using an all-women shortlist for the Labour party, and “isn’t sure” that transgender women should be allowed to run on them.
Izzard, 60, who became famous as a cross-dressing comedian and now identifies as a gender-fluid trans woman, has made the longlist of the open contest to become Labour’s candidate for the safe seat of Sheffield Central in the next general election.
In a short telephone interview with the Guardian on Thursday, Izzard said she had suffered a “torrent of transphobic abuse” since announcing her candidacy, including being photographed by a gender-critical feminist using the women’s toilet.
She and the former Channel 4 economics editor Paul Mason are the only candidates on the longlist to not live in Sheffield. The two local favourites are both city councillors: Abtisam Mohamed and Jayne Dunn.
Izzard, a Labour party member since 1995, started an accounting degree in Sheffield in the 1980s but dropped out to pursue a career in comedy. She now lives in London, but has promised to move her “main residence” to the steel city if selected later this year to replace Paul Blomfield, who is standing down with a majority of 27,273.
She insists she is better placed to represent the constituency than a “supercharged local councillor” because “their activism has been local and my activism has been national and international”.
Though Izzard announced two years ago that she preferred to be addressed with female pronouns and wanted to be “based in girl mode from now on”, she said “I don’t mind he/him”.
Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury, suggested recently that she would rather be arrested than refer to Izzard as “she”.
When asked about the possibility of misgendering someone becoming a hate crime, Duffield said: “Is that a serious thing? Is that coming to parliament anytime soon? I hope not because you might as well arrest me now. I’m not calling Eddie Izzard a woman.”
Asked for her message to Duffield, Izzard said: “She has got to join the 21st century. She’s got to catch up with the rest of us. The vast majority of the world is now moving forwards … The millennium has happened and we’re 22 years into it. So come and join us in the 21st century.”
Izzard had the same message for the Conservative MP Lee Anderson, who earlier this week told Talk TV he “would not follow [Izzard] into the toilets” if she came to parliament, and even said Keir Starmer was “not sure what he’s all about”.
Izzard said 98% of people she met in Sheffield wished her luck and that she received abuse from just a “vocal minority”.
On the pronoun question, Izzard said: “I am not telling anyone else to do anything. I prefer she/her. Don’t mind he/him. Changing my pronouns after a number of years being out just seemed to align more with how I was living my life. And am I not allowed to do that?”
Under Labour party policy, an all-women shortlist can be imposed only when fewer than half of Labour MPs are women – which is not currently the case.
Asked whether she thought trans women should be allowed to run on an all-women shortlist, Izzard said: “I’m not sure. We don’t have all-women shortlists [at the moment]. People can look at things in different ways. From my point of view, I am a transgender woman, I am gender fluid. I have been open and honest about this for 37 years. People seem to be outraged about this. I don’t know how much notice they need – 37 years is not enough? Maybe they need 38 years, that will make a difference. But you know, from my perspective, I’ve never tried to get on all-women shortlists. I’m not pushing for that.”
Izzard added: “I don’t make Labour party policy in respect of who should and could stand in which elections. For me, I’ve always believed since 1995 that I would not stand on an all-women shortlist as I’m gender fluid. Other people will feel differently and that is OK. Politics should be open to all, and room should be made to accommodate anyone with a positive heart who wants to serve.”
Gender-critical feminists have taken a particular interest in Izzard’s candidacy, with the former women’s officer for neighbouring Sheffield Hallam taking a photo of her using the women’s toilets at a campaign event.
Of that incident, Izzard said: “You’ve got to question people’s sensibility, if they’re going around taking photographs of people going into toilets. I go to the loo to go to the loo. I don’t know where other people’s imaginations are going.”
Izzard said she had suffered decades of public abuse, including being punched in the street. “I’ve had such disgusting things said to me over 37 years and now, to stand to be an MP in the seat of democracy in the United Kingdom, I’ve had to have such a torrent of transphobic abuse at that point when we’re talking about democracy, we’re talking about making people’s lives better. It’s rather sad that these people feel that they want to do this attacking and this abuse online.”
Many Labour members in Sheffield are more concerned about Izzard’s lack of recent local ties to the city than her trans identity. Asked why she thought she could be a better MP than others who had lived and worked in Sheffield for decades, Izzard said: “If they do want a supercharged councillor, there are great people there. But the thing that I bring that is different, is their activism has been local and my activism has been national and international.”
Pointing out that she had performed in 45 countries in four languages, Izzard said: “The creativity that I took from Sheffield … that energy, and that determination and ambition, I want to bring that to Sheffield because I think Sheffield needs to be brighter, stronger, bolder on the map.”
She added: “Because I have a personality, I am a character, and I am known across the UK and across the world, people will be saying: ‘Eddie Izzard, so tell me about Sheffield. Where is Sheffield?’ Because they may not know. And I can tell them. And I can be an ambassador for Sheffield Central, for Sheffield the city. And that’s the key different thing that I can bring.”
Izzard said she could help Sheffield compete locally and globally “to attract stronger inward investment”.
There is only one trans MP serving in the UK, the Conservative politician Jamie Wallis, who represents Bridgend in Wales. Wallis came out earlier this year but still uses he/him pronouns and dresses in male clothing in parliament.
Other countries have elected trans people to high office with little public outcry. Georgina Beyer because the first openly trans person in the world to become an MP when she won a seat in the New Zealand parliament in 1999. Petra de Sutter became Europe’s first out trans minister in 2020 when she became Belgium’s deputy prime minister.
