Eddie Izzard: 'I’ve had boob envy since my teens'

The actor and comic on making her female pronouns permanent, shouting down abuse, enduring a marathon-a-day - and running for Labour

Eddie Izzard doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. In December, it was reported that the standup comic/actor/campaigner/endurance runner had adopted the pronouns she" and her" and wanted to be based in girl mode" from now on. Well, it hardly came out of the blue, she says today. Izzard had spent the past 35 years building up to it, and when she did finally make the announcement it happened by chance.

A few months earlier, Izzard had been a guest on the Sky Arts series Portrait Artist Of the Year, and was asked, for the first time, which pronouns she preferred. She replied she and her" and never gave it another thought. By the time the programme was broadcast, Izzard had forgotten about the conversation. And suddenly she was headline news.