A new coming-of-age series is available to watch on BBC iPlayer, based on Paris Lee’s eponymous memoir.
What It Feels Like For A Girl is an 8-part series set in Nottingham in the noughties. It tells the story of Byron (Ellis Howard), 15, who falls into a party crowd and is eventually lured into an exploitative sex work industry. After a stint in prison, Byron, who was assigned male at birth, transitions into a woman.
Given the recent Supreme Court ruling in the UK, in which trans women were ruled as not being “women” under the law, the show - and it’s title - feel particularly momentous.
Here’s everything we know about Paris Lees, who wrote the memoir, and what we can expect from the series.
Who is Paris Lees and what is her real story?
Lees had a difficult childhood. She grew up in Hucknall, just north of Nottingham, where she experienced abuse, bullying and grooming from older men. She fell into a party scene and dropped out of college, then received a two-year prison sentence for taking part in a robbery.
Lees and another person stole a client’s bank cards and withdrew cash.
But after getting out, Lees returned to education. She went back to college, completed her A-levels, then studied English language at Brighton university. During this time, Lees, who was assigned male at birth, started her gender transition.
After graduating, Lees became an assistant editor at Gay Times, a publication she’d read in prison. In 2012, founded META, the first British trans magazine, and made history as the first transgender woman to appear in British Vogue (she then became the magazine’s first trans columnist). She also became the first trans woman presenter on Channel 4 and BBC Radio 1.
Lees has continually worked to change the media representation of trans people, writing for publications including The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph. She’s been named the Most Influential Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender Figure in the UK.
Is What It Feels Like for a Girl a real story?
What It Feels Like for a Girl is based on Lees’ memoir, but she’s made a few alterations in it. For starters, in both the memoir and the book, she’s called her protagonist ‘Byron,’
Lees told The Guardian that she wrote the book as if from the perspective of what she knew and felt at the time. “It's taken me many years to realise that it was abuse. I wasn't forced, but it was statutory rape. What would you call it? If somebody in their 30s or their 40s was having sex with a 14-year-old? It's abuse. And I wanted you to be horrified,” she said.
The series has been met with rave reviews, described as “funny, heartbreaking, occasionally disturbing, sharply written” by the Times and “fearless and compelling” by The Standard.
