Paris Lees Interview in the Sunday Times

[Igneococcus]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/vogue-columnist-paris-lees-im-the-acceptable-face-of-trans-i-dont-frighten-the-horses-9hfbk0nx5?shareToken=e82b1c4ee7e8f2d5a794438688f8d626

I wish the author would have challenged Lees a bit more. It's all a bit fluffy.
No comments. so readers can't ask the questions the interviewer didn't ask.

I get the impression that some men who harass women in the street genuinely don't see any harm in it. It's a 'bit of fun' or a 'compliment'. Any woman who doesn't like it is 'stuck up'. 'A lot of women appreciate it, it's why they wear short skirts and make-up.' I remember once being wolf-whistled at by a lad, who rode up fast behind me on his bike and made me jump out of my skin. I gave him the bird. He looked shocked. I went home and told my male housemate. He was outraged with me. Why couldn't I take a compliment?

" To effeminate men and boys it may be more 'oi arsebender' 'you could turn me' 'does your boyfriend like it when you suck him'."

I have never witnessed boys being treated like this in public and DH says he's never experienced / heard of it.

I'm sure that boys do get approached somtimes, but,

Men who prefer young boys and want to do something about it take different routes. Male children from puberty up (which is later anyway) are not seen as public sexual property in the same way. They are not looked at when their trousers get too small as "asking for it". Their PE kits and school uniforms are not sexualised. etc etc

It's just different.

I am sure that there is homophobic abuse, that's a slightly different kettle of fish though.

Women and girls are treated this way as they are lesser.
Men who other men identify as effeminite, abuse them because masculinity says that identifying with the "lesser" (female) is an abberation. Some laws show this up in countries where homosexuality amongst men is penalised, with harsher penalties for a man who receives anal sex (taking the "female role" in sex) than the one who penetrates (any holes a goal way more understandable...) I think it was Iran I was looking at their laws around this recently.

Paris is very keen on 'passing' for a woman, but the first time I saw her in a telly documentary, I knew instantly that she was biologically male.

Really? I don't often find this with trans women, but Paris Lees is probably one of the only ones that genuinely passes. If I didn't know her background, I would have no idea that she was not biologically female. I would also not feel uncomfortable sharing changing rooms/toilets with her because she does look so female. I find her views on street harassment abhorrent, but it sounds like she has had a very very tough life.

Really? I don't often find this with trans women, but Paris Lees is probably one of the only ones that genuinely passes. If I didn't know her background, I would have no idea that she was not biologically female. I would also not feel uncomfortable sharing changing rooms/toilets with her because she does look so female. I find her views on street harassment abhorrent, but it sounds like she has had a very very tough life

height, voice, size of hands, bone structure, huge amounts of makeup and very "done" hair, reliance on typically glamorous 'female' attire like mini skirts, very high heels, low cut tops, fishnet tights etc.. less obvious when facial feminisation surgery has occurred, admittedly.

it's interesting (genuinely interesting, not in a passive aggressive way) that you'd not feel uncomfortable being in a changing room/toilet with a transwoman who 'passes' and I assume this means you might be uncomfortable with a trans woman who doesn't look so feminine?

it's interesting (genuinely interesting, not in a passive aggressive way) that you'd not feel uncomfortable being in a changing room/toilet with a transwoman who 'passes' and I assume this means you might be uncomfortable with a trans woman who doesn't look so feminine?

I don't think it's strange in any way at all. Of course I feel much more comfortable if a person looks like a woman. I can't see people's chromosomes, so I go by sight. If a trans woman passes, that means people think she is a biological woman and therefore discomfort would probably never enter their minds because they would have no idea that said person was trans.

As for voice, Paris has an extremely feminine voice, no adams apple and looks no different to biological women who have larger bone structure etc. On the other hand, someone like Jane Fae is very obviously male.

It sounds superficial to go on looks etc and I am not comfortable about it, but at the end of the day, that's what people do. We know people are men or women by sight. Very rarely, it's possible to modify the body to such an extent that it's largely indistinguishable from the opposite sex, and then we naturally think it is the opposite sex.

I think Lees had voice surgery and a shaved down adams apple.

yes and facial feminisation surgery in 2012, according to various websites. It takes time, work and cash for someone biologically male to look feminine.

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.

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?

But what if you discovered they had full male genitalia?

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.

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

Proper LOL

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

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

Link failure.... Video here

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.