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BBC commissions new series based on Paris Lees autobiography - 'What it's like to be a girl'..

112 replies

Xoxoxoxoxoxox · 21/06/2023 10:33

This is the BBC's latest offering aimed at educating us on the lives of trans people and their struggles. Paris moved to Brighton and transitioned into a middle class media reporter for Vogue but note how the promo blurb shows exactly what the producers think of working class people from the North- who 'shuffle around like the living dead' -how inclusive of them.

It's a new millennium - Madonna, Moloko and Basement Jaxx top the charts, and there's a whole world to explore. But teenager Byron is stuck in a small working-class town that hasn’t been the same since the coal mine shut in the 80s. Sick of mam, sick of dad, sick of being beaten up for "talkin' like a poof". Sick of everyone shuffling about like the living dead, going on about kitchens they're too skint to do up and marriages they're too scared to leave. Byron needs to get away, and doesn't care how.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl-bbc

BBC announces What It Feels Like For A Girl, a new drama inspired by the acclaimed memoir by Paris Lees

Joyful, frank and packed with memorable characters, What It Feels Like For A Girl is a journey of love and danger, self-discovery and self-destruction. Because to find yourself sometimes you need to lose yourself...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2023/what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl-bbc

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QuickWash · 22/06/2023 09:47

@ArabeIIaScott do you want to report your post

Ereshkigalangcleg · 22/06/2023 09:47

Paris has described the robbery in Paris' own words in The Guardian years ago :

“I fell for rent boys who made cash by pimping out younger lads like me. One that I was sweet on suggested we rob a client and, to my shame, I agreed. The police got us, but my friend refused to attend court and my life began to disintegrate – the judge was hell-bent on sentencing us together. The case dragged and I dropped any intention of transition – and out of college. I was sentenced to two years.”
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/15/transgender-coming-of-age-paris-lees

Clymene · 22/06/2023 09:45

I don't think that's the incident either.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 22/06/2023 09:36

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WhyDontYouGoVegan · 21/06/2023 18:35

Remember when he plugged his own book while interviewing Emma Watson, who was forced to enthuse appropriately? Though knowing her, maybe it was real, but damn was it awkward as hell.

ArabeIIaScott · 21/06/2023 14:33

And of course will never have their career hindered by any of those tediously biological issues women face.

RavingStone · 21/06/2023 13:45

Paris Lees is clearly a misogynist (you only have to read their own words), has some internalised homophobia and is violent. They are now speaking on behalf of the class of human they despise. So I'd say they are appropriative too.

But, they have tits, hair and an attractive enough face. Helpful for scoring TV work and endorsement from other misogynist males who fail to look beyond the very surface.

NotTerfNorCis · 21/06/2023 13:20

yetanotherusernameAgain · 21/06/2023 12:55

@NotTerfNorCis "I think Paris also did sex work (using the PC term)as part of that scene."

No need to be PC - "rent boy" is the term Paris used to describe themself in the 2021 Guardian article.

I got a post deleted on the Guardian for mentioning that once. 🤔

yetanotherusernameAgain · 21/06/2023 13:09

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ArabeIIaScott · 21/06/2023 13:00

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yetanotherusernameAgain · 21/06/2023 12:55

@NotTerfNorCis "I think Paris also did sex work (using the PC term)as part of that scene."

No need to be PC - "rent boy" is the term Paris used to describe themself in the 2021 Guardian article.

Boiledbeetle · 21/06/2023 12:54

https://unherd.com/thepost/paris-lees-doesnt-know-what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl/

But what the BBC describes as “a rollercoaster ride of hedonism at the heart of the UK’s early 2000s club scene” ended in Lees robbing a “client”, stealing his bank card and emptying his bank account. At the age of 18, he served eight months of a two-year sentence in a young offenders’ institution.

Article link above about PL

Paris Lees doesn't know what it feels like for a girl

Paris Lees has no idea what it feels like to be a girl. Of course not: Lees’s experience as a teenage boy, selling sex to predatory older men, tells us nothing about how girls feel about anything. Now the BBC has issued a gushing press release about it...

https://unherd.com/thepost/paris-lees-doesnt-know-what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl

QuickWash · 21/06/2023 12:50

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NotTerfNorCis · 21/06/2023 12:45

Of course Paris doesn't know what it's like to be a girl. As Byron, Paris was very active on the gay scene - with other males. I think Paris also did sex work (using the PC term)as part of that scene. Paris can only ever speak from that range of experience.

Incidentally I was out clubbing in Nottingham in the same years as Paris. 'As a girl' I had quite a different experience and probably had to be a lot more careful.

yetanotherusernameAgain · 21/06/2023 12:41

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ArabeIIaScott · 21/06/2023 12:01

I don't know the answers to those questions, Datun.

Agree though that if the BBC go ahead this will all attract more sunlight to issues that illustrate very well why women don't want males in their spaces.

QuickWash · 21/06/2023 12:00

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Datun · 21/06/2023 11:52

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Slothtoes · 21/06/2023 11:52

The Madonna song of this era, (from which Lees presumably lifted the book title and the series title), was really eye opening in showing a younger me how fucked up gender stereotypes are, and the misogyny that they are rooted in.
Madonna sang:

‘Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots 'cause it's okay to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading’

She was singing ‘do you know what it feels like for a girl in this world’ about the harms of sexism and gender stereotypes.

NotTerfNorCis · 21/06/2023 11:51

I'm in Hucknall a lot. It's not that grim! And it's within walking distance of countryside and lovely villages.

ArabeIIaScott · 21/06/2023 11:35

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BellatrixLestrangesHeatedCurlers · 21/06/2023 11:34

this is the guy who said in an interview he loves getting cat-called. But yeah go off it's not a fetish.

QuickWash · 21/06/2023 11:30

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piedbeauty · 21/06/2023 11:18

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