Trans comedian-turned-politician Eddie Izzard unveils her new name

Transgender comedian-turned-politician Eddie Izzard has taken on the name “Suzy,” a name they said they’ve wanted since age 10.

In a March 6 broadcast of the Political Party Podcast, Izzard said they now go by “Suzy Eddie Izzard.” She said she’s okay with people referring to her as either “Eddie” or “Suzy,” though she prefers that people refer to her with feminine pronouns.

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“I prefer to see she/her, I don’t mind he/him … I’m Eddie. There’s another name I’m going to add in as well, which is Suzy, which I wanted to be since I was 10,” she said in the podcast, according to Politico. “I’m going to be Suzy Eddie Izzard. That’s how I’m going to roll, so people can choose what they want. They can’t make a mistake, they can’t go wrong.”

Izzard noted that her pronouns or names seem less important to her than her coming out as trans in 1985, something she said was “not easy.” At the time, Izzard came out as a “transvestite” (that is, a cross-dresser) rather than as “transgender.” However, she said she faced transphobia back then as well, as she has during her recent campaigns to become a British parliament member.

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“I’m still gender fluid and I tell everyone that’s supported me, ‘Relax people [on my pronouns]. He or she, it doesn’t really matter’” she said in the podcast. “The pronoun thing isn’t the important thing… I don’t know [how many genders there are]. We’re all somewhere on the spectrum. We have just got to chill out about it.”

In 2020, Izzard said she wanted to be referred to as “she” and “her,” noting, “I’m genderfluid. I just want to be based in girl mode from now on.” She has identified as both transgender and genderfluid since at least 2016, when she said she is “somewhat boy-ish and somewhat girl-ish. I identify [with] both but I fancy women.”

She has also said that she uses the term “transgender” as an “umbrella term” and called herself  “a lesbian trapped in a man’s body” several decades before she said she was genderfluid. In 2017, she told The Hollywood Reporter, “I am essentially transgender,” stating, “I have boy mode and girl mode. I do feel I have boy genetics and girl genetics.”

That same year, she joked on Twitter that she does not wear women’s clothes because “they’re my clothes. I bought them.”

Though the gender-fluid polyglot is perhaps best known for her acting and stand-up comedy, she has also run several times for political office and has run numerous marathons for charities benefitting sick and injured people. Izzard’s 1998 stand-up performance Dress to Kill won her two Primetime Emmy Awards for writing and individual performance.

She has appeared in numerous West End stage productions and on-screen, including the very gay glam-rock film Velvet Goldmine and the dramatic TV series United States of Tara, Hannibal, and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Around 2017, she announced her retirement from comedy to pursue politics instead.

In 2016 and 2018, she made unsuccessful bids to sit on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. In 2022, she also ran an unsuccessful campaign for a parliamentary seat. However, she has vowed to be the first transgender parliament member in the U.K. no matter how many times she has to run, adding, “I am a relentless bastard.”