Eddie Flipping Izzard

[ReluctantCamper]

excerpt from his autobiography in which Eddie recounts:

1. using the ladies loo to get changed, because why not. I mean he sometimes wears nail varnish so what woman on earth would object to having a poo or inserting a tampon with Eddie in the next cubical

2. shouting at some teenaged girls who objected to his presence. This is totes empowering and women could definitely use this tactic when we're shouted at by men in the street and it wouldn't end with us getting beaten up.

You go Eddie. You're a fucking inspiration.

The story of the teenage girls is clearly a made up story.

Think back to when you were 13yrs old Would you really have followed a man in a dress? Probably not. You would more than likely have gone straight home, traumatised, and perhaps told your mum.

Ugh. I also think it's a made up story. But why the fuck was he in the ladies' toilet in the first place? They really aren't there for cross-dressers to get a thrill out of and women should have the right to ask wtf he is doing in there. Obviously, following and heckling is not on and you can expect to be shouted at.

Also just read that he believes he is a 'male lesbian'. Okaaaaayyyy then. At least he is not claiming to be a 'real woman' I guess.

As there's no Christine Shawcroft thread, I'll just post on here that given a choice for Labour's NEC (which I suspect sparked this thread) between the person who conspired to ensure that a Holocaust-denier was chosen as a Labour candidate and someone who chose to change clothes in a ladies public loo while dressed as a woman and shouted at three girls following him and publicly mocking him, I'll go for Eddie Izzard
It's not much of a choice though is it? A misogynist or an anti-Semite - what has the Labour Party come to?

Of course the story is bollocks

It's quite eye opening though that the lies people tell make them look worse than the rather more pedestrian truth

The toilet story - a man wishes to dress in what is normally considered women's clothing; he then decides that gives him the right to use the women's toilet; and claims it is wrong of young girls who happen to be in there to challenge him?!?!! No. He is a man who should use the men's toilet, but I guess he was scared of attracting the attention of any other males in there. But women or girls, they can just put up with it can't they?

Repeating one of my comments from the original Eddie Izzard thread, because teenage girls today are being demonised and fetishsed everywhere:

Also have a hard time believing his story, sounds like a fantasy - he wishes a lesbian accompanied him on his dressings up trip, and the weird humiliation fetish played out with lowly girls shaming him.
The dismissive way he talks about the girls, ie chavy/mouthy, smoking., truanting. Sounds the same dismissive attitude handed out to the Rotherham Abuse children. The attitude to young teen girls needs to somehow stop. No they are not temptresses or have mystical power over adult men.

I think he is awesome.

Question - why would it be difficult for me to insert a tampon in a cubicle next to a bloke? The cubicles are locked and he wouldn't be able to see me.

Hi Eddie

. But why the fuck was he in the ladies' toilet in the first place?

Presumably because he was scared to go into the men's loos in a dress and makeup. Which may have been a reasonable fear at that time, but it didn't give him carte blanche to use the ladies loo instead. He should have planned his cross-dressing foray better. What he clearly didn't anticipate was that he'd be challenged by some truanting girls.

'You assume older people intimidate younger people, but those three thirteen-year-old girls had power over a twenty-three-year-old man.'

I think he's being disingenuous....I really doubt his assumption would have been the same if it had been three thirteen year old boys.

Question-why would it be difficult for me to insert a tampon in a cubicle next to a bloke? The cubicles are locked and he wouldn't be able to see me.

Well, that's up to you. I probably would have no issue either, but some women say that they do, so maybe believe them? Some women would also happily get changed next to a strange man or sunbathe topless on a beach with loads of men watching. While I would change a tampon, I wouldn't do the other two, so I guess one person's perception shouldn't determine what everyone else has to do.

Why would he make up the story?? It sounds perfectly plausible. I have no proof it is true, but then no-one seems to have any proof it isn't true either.

I don't really know what he's like as a person or whether or not he's misogynist - nothing in his comedy has ever come across as misogynist, and I've always got a vague sense he appears to like women in his shtick. Whatever, I don't think he's really deserving of the hate on this thread or, apparently, on another thread I've not seen.

I do know that if you have a problem with current Labour policies, you're aiming at the wrong man if you're aiming at Izzard.

And I repeat, I wonder at the timing of an attack here on Izzard on the same day he supplants a Holocaust-denier-enabling best mate of Jezza.

Happy to put my head above the parapet, MsBeauvoir and say that I'll take Izzard over the woman secretly conspiring to ensure Holocaust deniers become Labour candidates.

In the absence of any actual evidence that Izzard is a misogynist.

Question - why would it be difficult for me to insert a tampon in a cubicle next to a bloke?

If you're asking that question, then it probably wouldn't be. Me neither. But I can easily imagine reasons why other women and girls would find this difficult.

And I repeat, I wonder at the timing of an attack here on Izzard on the same day he supplants a Holocaust-denier-enabling best mate of Jezza.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Maybe Izzard isn't as bad as shawcroft. Yeah, the teenage girls were mean. So what? People who stand for elected office put themselves above the parapet, and should expect to be held accountable for their behaviour.

Using a women's loo might be inappropriate but I don't think there is any evidence that it was deliberate 'misogyny'.

And you can't claim:

a) that him using a women's loo is evidence of his misogyny and

b) that the whole story is made up.

Either it's made up.

Or it's not made up.

But it can't be made up AND prove he behaved in a way that was 'misogynistic'.

My view is personally that a) it probably wasn't made up and b) it may show lack of thought but not deliberate misogyny, and I'm not in favour of those two being conflated.

Inserting a tampon is quite a noisy business actually

A cheap and flimsy wall that doesn't go to the ceiling or the floor is bad enough. When there's a bloke within a couple of feet, yes I can see the problem

incorrigiblyplural
I agree that he shouldn't have been in women's loos, though he was dressed as a woman (when he went in)
He wasn't dressed as a woman, because up until a couple of years ago he said things like “They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes. I bought them.”
twitter.com/eddieizzard/status/519196883215192066
That was before he decided that being a boring old transvestite was so last century, so he declared himself transgender instead. Agree with others who've said that the teenage girls story never happened.

It’s the way he talks about the lesbian that makes me vomit in my mouth.
The way he questions it ‘can I go out with a lesbian?’ ‘I wasn’t ready for a relationship so I just asked her to join me while I pranced around in women’s clothes’
No thought about her boundaries or desires at all.

There are levels of perfection I expect from my MPs and a bloke nipping into a woman's loo on a single occasion when he thinks it's unoccupied (and being quite put out when he finds it is occupied) is about as serious in my book as an able-bodied person nipping into a disabled loo on a single occasion (which I confess I have occasionally done - with apologies to any disabled people outraged at my behaviour).

I agree I probably shouldn't have done it but I certainly don't agree it's evidence of the fact that I hate disabled people. I don't, and I don't see any evidence (on this thread, anyway) that Izzard hates women either.

Maybe he does. But there is zero evidence here.

It’s his massive, massive sense of male entitlement that gets me in this story.
He chooses the women’s loos so that’s where he goes. No consideration of the impact of that on others. Plus the way he talks about the lesbian who he is not yet ready to have sex with, so she gets to assist him meanwhile.
And then the self-congratulation, again without any awareness of the impact of his behaviour on others.
If it is true, I can imagine the teens might have been genuinely curious, freaked out and angry at finding a man in their loos.

It’s not the using of the loos that’s misogyny it’s his incredibly entitled attitude that women are just props in his dressing up box.

AnyFucker - you think the story is made up.

So why are you arguing about whether him being in a cubicle would upset a putative woman inserting a tampon in the next cubicle?

When you've just said he was never there anyway?

But he’s not popping into the women’s loos because the men’s are occupied is he? Otherwise when it became clear that some females were uncomfortable with his presence he’d say ‘oh I’m sorry’ and leave.

Teacuphiccup - where?

I see no evidence for this.

Yes, he fancies a lesbian, but he doesn't make a move on her, let alone force her to do anything against her will. He can't help fancying her whatever her feelings on the subject might be. I have a thing for certain male actors who are definitely gay. I don't see this as disrespectful of their sexuality. He is friends with a lesbian. He hangs out with her. How is this a problem?

As long as he keeps his feelings to himself, which there is no evidence that he doesn't, then there is nothing misogynistic about this.

plural
No using the disabled loos doesn’t mean you hate disabled people, but telling a story twenty years later about how you once put a cast on your arm and used the disabled toilets and when someone in a wheelchair questioned you and how awful and prejudiced they were.
Then maybe that would be a bit more like what happened.