Labour MP Rosie Duffield ‘would rather be arrested than call Eddie Izzard a woman’
Labour MP Rosie Duffield would rather be arrested than call Eddie Izzard a woman (Rosie Duffield/Facebook and David M. Benett/Getty Images)
Rosie Duffield has reportedly said she would rather be arrested than call Labour hopeful Eddie Izzard a woman.
Speaking at a conference for anti-trans campaign group LGB Alliance, Duffield reportedly spoke out against the possibility that misgendering somebody could become a hate crime.
According to Kent Online, the Canterbury MP claimed she would rather be arrested if the law was in place, singling-out trans comic Izzard, who launched her bid to become the Labour parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Central in early October.
“Is that a serious thing? Is that coming to parliament any time soon?” Duffield reportedly said.
“I hope not because you might as well arrest me now. I’m not calling Eddie Izzard a woman.”
Duffield also criticised PinkNews at the LGB Alliance conference for its coverage of her comments on transgender people, claiming the outlet has “trolled” her and her staff “within an inch of our lives” by sending emails asking for comments on her statements.
Duffield has previously attracted widespread criticism for her trans-exclusionary remarks, including for a BBC appearance in November 2021, in which she repeatedly called trans women “male bodied”.
Speaking against trans women being held in female jails and hospital wards, she said that cis women “have the right to at least debate or talk about whether people in a male body are allowed into single-sex spaces”.
Two of Duffield’s staff resigned in 2020 over her views, including a cis lesbian staffer.
The MP has previously criticised Izzard’s political run, threatening to leave the Labour party if Izzard is selected to stand in the next general election on an all-women shortlist.
She reportedly said at a Labour Women’s Declaration (LWD) discussion group at the Labour Conference in September, Duffield said: “I won’t lie. I won’t say a man is a woman. Eddie Izzard is not a woman.
“I’m absolutely not the only Labour woman MP who will leave the party if Eddie Izzard gets onto an all-women shortlist.”
Izzard, who publicly requested the use of she/her pronouns in 2020, said when announcing her bid to become MP that “Labour ideals of fairness and equality have been at the core of my life”.
Duffield strenuously denies that she is transphobic and says that she supports the LGBTQ+ community.
PinkNews has contacted Duffield for comment.
