BBC 'What it feels like for a girl'

[GreenFriedTomato]

This just appeared on my BBC homepage so I went off to Google.

Based on Paris Lee's memoirs and The guardian have reviewed.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jun/03/what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl-review-deeply-disturbing-and-totally-fearless-tv

Have any of you watched this?

Yes. Felt quite dark & queasy afterwards, not sure I can face watching the rest.
Byron is an abused and neglected child. Bullied by his father & his peers for being effeminate.
It seemed to me to be such a clear example of transgenderism on the basis of internalised homophobia (in line with Blanchard & Bailey’s theories). He is not a girl trapped in a boy’s body. He is a gay traumatised boy.

Should have said - only watched first episode.

Lees went through some messed up stuff in his youth. I am sorry that happened to him.

Doesn’t stop the title being goady crap.

It's not about a girl at all
Bloody Guardian BBC bullshit

Only four stars from the Grauniad? That's trans genocide, innit.

This is heartbreaking and also utterly predictable because the bios of adult transwomen always always always detail abusive upbringings like this.

I don't especially blame Lees for not having an objective view of his own life story. Its not an easy thing to face up to, especially if one has taken irreversible steps as a consequence.

I do blame the "adults in the room". The journalists and medics and politicians and charities who self identify as progressive yet assert that Lees is a woman. Why the fuck aren't they saying "Lees' story is sad and we can be kind about that and try and understand the steps Lees felt he had to take. And crucially, let's make sure no other gay children have to endure this?"

I don't have a problem with the title, which I think is a reference to the Madonna Song.

It sounds quite honest, and much better than those CBBC programmes about being born in the wrong body.

This is a really odd paragraph in the review though:

"This adaptation of journalist Paris Lees’ excellent memoir about growing up in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire (or ’Ucknall, as the book, with its mesmeric phonetic dialect, has it) chronicles the coming-of-age of Byron, who is seen by others as a boy. Initially, our protagonist doesn’t really push back on that; despite some early gender dysphoria – angrily dismissed by their macho father – the prospect of one day openly living as a woman is completely outside their frame of reference."

Why would other people see Byron as anything other than a boy? It's not even claimed that Byron thinks this to be the case.

The implication is that the reviewer has the same narrow minded views on gender as Byron's father.

Yes I noticed that too merrymouse.

I assumed the Guardian journo actually thinks Paris Lees is a woman; due to thickness or unacknowledged homophobia.

I'm a bit disturbed by this paragraph:

"Once Byron starts regularly dressing in women’s clothes, sex takes on a new meaning. Risky, borderline violent encounters aren’t self-destructive – they’re self-affirmative, an opportunity to achieve something crucial: “pride that he actually thinks I’m a girl,""

Byron's narrative is that they're not a victim but they very obviously were. I find it odd that the Guardian journo doesn't name the homophobia and the vulnerability of Byron. More so If she really believes she's writing about a girl: An abused girl, displaying promiscuous behaviour, is at extreme risk during sexually violent encounters regardless of what the girl says.

I dunno, I just feel this kind of feeds rape myths somewhat. Girls (and boys) with these histories are always going to be viewed as the wrong kind of victim in court.

Thick / homophobic journalists and Lees' lack of objectivity aside I actually think the series sounds quite good. I might watch it. I think it will spark useful conversations especially with gay friends.

Take out Girl, put in gay boy from dysfunctional family with no real friends and bitter about society. That would be closer. I'm close to some Autistic men with very similar stories of lonliness and fear but don't go seeking headlines.

The title completely pissed me off. I stumbled across it and thought it’d be about a girl! It’s not. I turned off after half an hour. When will we ever get anything about girls?

Haven't seen it, would possibly change my opinion if I did see it, but have to say I do NOT like the title.

Thanks for the replies.
The title did annoy me and put me off. I get that it may be a reference to the Madonna song but I don't feel it sounds honest as a pp stated. Paris Lees has never been a girl so has no idea what that feels like. It sounds Dylan Mulvaney-ish

That being said, I will give it a go. I'm curious to see if it goes with the trans women are real women narrative, particularly given the timing, and that it's on mainstream TV and may be watched by a wide audience

I have waded through some of it and its pretty depressing but probably an important topic eg an underage boy, in a homophobic social environment, rebelling against his parents who don't have the tools and capacity to help him, discovering his homosexuality and being groomed and abused by older men, being pulled into a skeevy situation of paedophilia, criminality and sex work, and finding some sort of resolution/reincarnation in developing their trans identity as a way of resolving their insitinctive camp behaviour with their internalised homophobia and also allowing a fresh 'social start' as a new identity.

This is probably not what the makers intended me to take from the series- as its meant to be gritty, stunning and groundbreaking and brave and aspirational, but its just sad, and thought provoking like programs based around the grooming gangs. The title jars as there is nothing about girls or girls issues in here, nothing about growing up as a girl, dealing with social expectations of femininity, just a sad situation of an under aged homosexual lad getting gaslit, abused by older men and drawn into a dodgy sexual subculture.

My local Facebook is full of it, saying it’s a must watch, and commenting on what an inspirational woman she is. Stunning and brave all the way!

I actually wondered whether one account was a pseudonym , as it’s pushing the program so hard.

My local Facebook is just “which bins is it this week?”

That’s because you aren’t lucky enough to be in Paris’s hometown. Everyone’s busy patting themselves on the back for being so much more progressive these days. But it’s not changed much. Lee Anderson territory.

I get that it may be a reference to the Madonna song but I don't feel it sounds honest as a pp stated. Paris Lees has never been a girl so has no idea what that feels like.

Note that "never being a girl" is the original context of the title of the Madonna track.

Sample at the start of the track, spoken by Charlotte Gainsbourg in the film The Cement Garden:

Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
'Cause it's OK to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl

https://www.whosampled.com/sample/348434/Madonna-What-It-Feels-Like-for-a-Girl-The-Cement-Garden-Being-a-Girl-Is-Degrading/

The song proper is a female response to that, with bits like:

Hurt that's not supposed to show
And tears that fall when no one knows
When you're trying hard to be your best
Could you be a little less

I suspect that Paris is identifying far more with the male protagonist of the film, and that sample, rather than Madonna's voice in the song.

Bonus link to the thread I searched for to find my Madonna quotes for this - interesting thread from 4 years ago:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/4379744-men-dressing-in-womens-clothes-is-offensive?page=2

Plays/tv series/book titles are often ironic, and whether or not that is intended in this case, that is how I am choosing to understand it - particularly given that it doesn't describe an experience that could be shared with any girl.

Or rather, the experiences that are shared are universal, not sex specific.

Mine too! Bins and the 'migrant hotel"
Where does this poster live? Brighton or Hebden Bridge I assume

It actually sounds like my kind of thing but I'm a sucker for dark, depressing, real-life dramas'
Then again, I'm surprised the conclusion has been he was always a woman deep down if the reality is as you describe. Surely this doesn't fit at all with the narrative of being born in the wrong body and TWAW, but rather confirms an abused and traumatised gay man who has opted to escape , much like abused girls who they to escape being female.

They have now closed our ‘migrant hotel’ so everyone’s had to move on to feral children.

If Paris had grown up in Hebden Bridge or Brighton he would have had an easier time of it. It’s ironic all the cheering about Paris now as it’s not a progressive area.

I’ve been thinking about where the quote came from, the dialogue spoken by Charlotte Gainsbourg in the film version of the book ‘The Cement Garden’ by Ian McEwen.

The Cement Garden is a horror story about four children whose parents both die, and in an attempt to avoid being put into foster care they bury their mother under cement. The story of how they attempt to live their lives, isolated in their grief and trauma - with the older boy and girl taking on parental roles - is utterly horrifying and features incest between the teenagers.

For more context, here’s the scene the dialogue comes from, after the girls have been dressing the little boy as a girl, which he wants to do as part of his grief from losing his mother. Charlotte Gainsbourg’s lines are an interesting reflection on gender roles and an exploration of AGP, but I wonder if Paris Lees even had any awareness of this when he came up with his book title.