To feel incredibly sorry for Eddie Izzard

I genuinely just wish it was socially acceptable for men to wear dresses, pretty clothes and make up if they so wished, and then perhaps we wouldn’t be where we are now. Clothes and expression have no gender, bodies do.

this - all the live long day. THIS.

When i started out in the Wonderful World of Work, back in the early 80s, i had a job in an office on a military base. Run by a retired old fart of a colonel. The PA was a wonderfully elegant lady who was off for a few months after a nasty accident, broke both legs, had pins in and horrible scars. She turned up on her first day if a beautifully cut, very expensive, ladies trouser suit. And he screamed across the car park at her to go home and put a dress on and never come to work dressed like a mechanic again. Horrendous.

We women are fairly lucky here, we can pretty much dress up, dress down, wear men's jeans and boots and whatever. If that courtesy would be extended to everyone, the world would be a better place (especially if "women's" clothes finally got useable sensible pockets)

I’m with Rosie.

Rosie Duffield for PM.

@ColdstreamAnnie do you even live here? Are you faced with the prospect of having this man as your local MP? Can you even begin to imagine the effects this man would have on the local area if he gets elected?

@yerdaindicatesonbends absolutely no problem with him wearing dresses, make up etc. He's my age. It was a perfectly unremarkable thing in the 1980s when he and I were in our late teens and 20s.
However, invading women's single sex spaces was not. Which is what he does. And he claims not to care about pronouns but if any of us dares to call him HIM , the TRAs say we are evil bigots.
Autogynophiles like him have no right to feel proud of themselves

Well he's not a woman though is he, seeing as he's got a cock.

mumsnet is "known for being gender critical" but it doesn't mean everyone thinks that way, loads of us just can't be bothered getting into the argument/ dived up on/ shot down by a big group of intense gender critical feminists.

Come on. Translate that to other situations where someone might say they identify as something they quite obviously aren't.

I identify as a child, although I am an adult. I need adult women to help me with my incontinence products.
I identify as Black, although I am white. I will now be standing for election as a BAME rep in my local constituency party and I will apply for jobs reserved for a person from an ethnic minority.
I identify as disabled, although I am actually perfectly healthy. I use a wheelchair and intend to play in the Paralympics.

Every single one of the above is already happening. Almost nobody would go along with any of them. Why is it different if an adult human female says 'I identify as a man, I will swear an oath to live the rest of my life as a man so I can get a new birth certificate via a Gender Recognition Certificate and then I will head for the fertility clinic so I can become pregnant?' or if an adult human male says 'I identify as a woman and I want to be elected as an MP so I can increase the female representation in the House of Commons?'

He's a bullshitter and a pisstaker. Says he 'came out as transgender 37 years ago' - total nonsense. He was always proud to be a man who wore heels, tights and makeup and that was genuinely brave of him.

I'm so proud of Rosie Duffield for refusing to go along with his self-serving lies and more power to her

There’s no need to leave. Just make a case for what you want to happen, and why. ‘He seems like a nice person’ isn’t an argument. So are the disabled women, the religious women, the sexual assault survivors, being excluded from their own spaces by the Eddies of the world. Is he that much nicer than them?

You feel sorry for Eddie.

But you don't want anyone with a penis to use the women's bathroom.

The below is from a piece written a few weeks ago.

Do you still feel sorry for Eddie even though Eddie doesn't respect your right, or that other women like you, to privacy and dignity in single sex spaces?

"We had taken seats at the front of a room containing around 300 people, many of them women. The bar had a long queue and people seemed in good spirits. As Julie and I became more irritated at the long wait for Izzard’s appearance on stage, I suddenly spotted a man being ushered through a curtain at the side, shielded by two women. I realised as he was whisked into the women’s toilet that it was Eddie Izzard. I told Julie. We both swore proficiently. It was hard to believe that, in full view of the large audience, a man would be assisted to the women’s toilet by two other women. These women were smiling sycophantically and held the door open for him in a supreme act of betrayal to women of the UK, who have a right to single sex services under the Equality Act 2010."

MN hadn't decided but I think you'll find most people feel like this. Sick of being nice and being told to feel sorry for the wrong bloody people.

^ This

If only the women in Iran currently being killed had just taken a leaf out of Eddie's book and worn different shoes so that they were no longer female.

If only the girls in Afghanistan being denied an education could have realised all they had to do was to switch to "boy mode".

So fucking insulting to pretend that womanhood is a costume you can identify in and out of when so many women and girls around the world are oppressed based on their biology and can do no such thing.

It makes me sick.

Thoughts and prayers with Eddie.

Eddie is a man. He can wear whatever the hell he likes but he will still be a man.

I love that a 62 year old man gets to be a ‘girl’ .

I’m a 53 year old woman, can I be a girl again? What do I do to achieve this (& get rid of all my middle age aches).

Giggle & toss my hair?

I wouldn’t be up for the pillow fights in my underwear though.

You just misgender Eddie. If you do it while you are thinking about it and considering Rosie's stance, what chance do the rest of us have.

The phrase "symbolic of his struggle against reality" sums it up really.

I'm sure the Izzster will know where it comes from

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? Perhaps it will stop if you pop to B&Q.

You are joking surely - Eddie Izzard is a MAN! He deserves not one iota of sympathy.

I'll reserve my sympathy for actual women - too often the victims of DV, sexual assaults, poverty, pay gaps, restriction of reproductive rights etc etc not some idiot who puts on a dress and bit of lip and reckons he's a "girl."

Perfectly explained.

Surely he just needs to look down at his genitals to see his gender?

Feeling sorry for him would depend on what mode im in!

Ooops I don’t have different modes, I’m a woman 100% of the time since birth.

This is a good point OP.
You're distressed to the point of starting a thread about misgendering, but your support for the trans community is pretty thin if you don't accept male bodied women in your personal space..
Can you explain this further?