Paris Lees Interview in the Sunday Times

Everything that involves an empirical claim is up for debate.

Just amazing isn't she.....

@Victoriapestis the hair thing pissed me right off too

I like Paris. I think she is excellent as a trans advocate and I have to admire her determination to 'fit' as a woman, which appears to work on a superficial level.

But I also feel sad for her knowing that however hard she tries she will never properly belong due to biology, socialization and some weird innate womanly thing that includes body language, tea and biscuits, self depreciating humour and a mindset that centres people and relationships.

Watch the Celebrity Island that Paris did, she didn't fit in with the women (or the men)

It was the same for India Willoughby on CBB, she didn't get the way that women interact and I've seen the same thing in personal friendships with Transwomen. I can respect pronouns, natter away, thank the person for a 'nice girly chat' but it is never like interacting with a biological woman. The topics of conversation, the vulnerable ego, the walking on eggshells, my level of comfort/discomfort and the general lack of understanding or empathy. In my opinion no amount of hormones, surgery, voice training or styling can ever give a transwoman that je ne sais quoi that biological women naturally have.

We share both female biology and socialisation, plus the shared oppression and ongoing experiences of sexism. These are huge things to have in common.

Yes I agree, and I don't agree male people have the same experience.

We share both female biology and socialisation, plus the shared oppression and ongoing experiences of sexism. These are huge things to have in common.

Well it's biology, yes. Women are discriminated against because of our biology. Because we bleed, because we can (or cannot) give birth, because we are put in the role of careers, because female jobs are always seen as less important than male jobs.

Paris passing has nothing to do with that.

Women have a lot in common with each other and very little, apart from also being homo sapiens, with males.

Not too much of a fan of this way of thinking either, unless by 'in common', you mean biology. However, if it's things like personality, interests, propensity towards certain activities, then the only reason men and women differ is due to socialisation and to claim that we are innately different in terms of how we act feeds into patriarchy. I can't speak for all women and nor can I claim to necessarily have things in common with all women, other than the experience of being a female living under patriarchy. Obviously PL doesn't have that experience. I would agree with a pp who says that PL is a transsexual though, not like e.g. Jess Bradley. PL is annoying, sure, but at least has made a significant effort to appear female.

Yes, Paris genuinely believes that being a woman is all about having good hair days and getting blokes to fancy you. Paris has no real understanding of what being a woman is, that is very obvious.

This, exactly, AngryAttackKittens.
I have a lot less trouble with transwomen who don't happen to pass for one minute even in a darkened room but don't claim to speak for all women, than I do with Paris. Paris thinks it's all about appearance. It's really not, but then that's Paris's own value system for you.

Quite.

It's the male entitlement of believing they can speak for women.

Er no.

Women have a lot in common with each other and very little, apart from also being homo sapiens, with males.

I'd feel a lot more tolerant towards Paris if Paris wasn't so determined to pass their own rather distinctly male socialized and porn infused sexual interests off as being Just Girl Things What All Girls Secretly Crave.

It seems to be a movement of men who want to takeover female glamour, enabled by new surgeical techniques. You can imagine trans women moving into the mainstream media’s female roles in greater numbers.

Link failure.... Video here

PL is slightly different to other TRAs - to me, at least - because they are attracted to men and are perhaps more like the transsexuals of old than the angry AGP transwomen who are currently dominating the discourse.

PL has a valid point when they discuss the lack of working class voice in the media, and I agree with them that Brexit is a clusterfuck.

But....but.... PL is a wonderful gift to the sort of men who want to believe that all women think that it's "hot" when one's partner is crying during sex, or that we all secretly crave a threesome with random men who give us "something to shut us up"

And apart from Cheryl Tweedy (as was - am I deadnaming her?) who punched another woman, I'm struggling to think of a female media darling who has served prison time for a violent assault. It would make most women so toxic that no-one would touch them, never mind laud them as a spokes person for their cause.

Re FFS - here's a video where PL raves about the wonderful work of the surgeons who did the operations in 2012. PL looks convincingly female, to my eyes, in carefully posed photos but as soon as they are next to someone else or on TV it's obvious that they were born male.

Don't forget that according to Paris, what women really lurvvve when it comes to sex is, amongst other things, being tied up and 'rammed like a champ from behind' and being jizzed all over by random men in a nightclub.

Funky that’s kind of my point, it’s all very well trans women ‘passing’ but 80% of them retain their male genitalia, which means we women will be in for a surprise if they change next to us!

I got up at 7 am this morning with a house full of boisterous kids after a sleepover. After cooking them breakfast and lunch and tidying up their crap and driving 2 of them home I did a post on mumsnet. Then I did several hours work, paid work, giving difficult advice to people who pay for it (and who don’t give a fuck about my hair). Then I went and helped my 86 year old mother have a bath and sorted out her medical issues. Then I washed kids clothes, cooked their supper, did mountains of ironing, ordered their xmas presents, called an elderly relative who is ill and lonely, and cleaned the house.

If only I had thought to say I couldn’t turn up on time for any of this because I had a bad hair day! Silly silly me!

I wonder what Paris’ day was like? Did she wash anyone’s bottom, or clean up their pants? Is she exhausted and sitting down for the first time at 10.30pm?

Or is it only we lucky vagina owners who get to do all this lovely stuff, before heading off to work, with our raggedy grotty hair, frankly looking almost like men, we’re so horribly unkempt, on Monday?

if a person you perceive as a woman transpires to have meat & 2 veg & yr standing beside them changing, in a women’s changing room, would you be ok with that?

Err, no, I think seeing that they have 'meat and 2 veg' as you so eloquently put it would stop me seeing them as a woman. I am talking about trans women who pass as women. The very word passing means that people think they are women. Therefore, I would be happy sharing a changing room with someone who passes because I would not perceive them as male. I am not talking about Paris personally- just a TW who also passes and does not have any obviously male features. Obviously if someone who looks like a woman gets their penis out, I would probably revise my belief that they are a woman.

Paris's 1st YouTube video from 2009. FFS was in 2012 because there's a video. Proud transsexual in this video. How things have changed

I suppose it is possible she hasn't read the Iliad.

Proper LOL

I think the deception also works better in 2 dimensions - ie - video and photographs. In real life 3D there are a whole lot of other cues, some that you are barely conscious of which you are able to pattern match.

I had that experience of a female born transsexual. Chatting I felt comfortable thinking they were a he (it was a professional context so I didn't question), but on leaving and reflecting upon the meeting because I had to write up notes, my mind was totally aware and certain that I'd been talking to a female and I couldn't shake it off. It was very strange.

I think you can fool the eyes but there's a load of senses you can't fool.

But what if you discovered they had full male genitalia?

funky you say you wouldn’t mind sharing a changing room with PL.......if a person you perceive as a woman transpires to have meat & 2 veg & yr standing beside them changing, in a women’s changing room, would you be ok with that?

It’s quite a common ‘twist’ in films or on TV that the leather clad, motorcycle helmeted assassin/jewel their turns out to be a woman.

It never fools me for a second.

Even with a padded jacket, heavy boots and a helmet, there’s just something different about the way men and women move or carry themselves.

It’s always jarring when they use a stuntman too.