Paris Lees rose to fame writing articles for people whose porn habits were getting in the way of their progressive credentials. In a succession of Vice articles in the mid-2010s, Lees reassured readers that (among other things) being objectified was fun; old-style feminists were bigots; and prostituted women were fine, actually. All this was “feminist” because Lees claimed to be a woman — not only that, but a trans woman, the most oppressed and hence the most authoritative woman of all.

For the progressive misogynist, “Paris Lees says so” was a significant upgrade on “the wife doesn’t mind”. Demands for further insights were to be expected. Lees’s 2021 memoir What It Feels Like For a Girl has now been made into a BBC Three series. If the title of the book and drama is “divisive”, then of course it’s meant to be. It’s intended to troll all those nasty women who will say that Lees has never been a girl. Then again, it’s a title that wouldn’t work without some tacit acceptance that the nasty women are right.

This is the curious thing about the BBC series: there’s not really any deception to it. This is a story about a boy and, as such, it has lots to say about masculinity, homophobia and male sexuality. There is very little on female experience, with women and girls generally existing as support humans, happy hookers or refrigerator mothers — not unlike 2021’s It’s a Sin.

At the start we see Lees’s character, Byron, trying to survive as a gay teenager, mocked by his father for “walking like a fairy” and taking beatings from local lads. After one such beating, he tells a concerned passer-by: “they’re calling me gay.” She responds: “So what if you are?” While not of any practical use, it’s an important moral message: so what if he is? Alas, by the end of the series (but only at the end) Byron will be claiming to be a woman. So, not gay after all.

The distinction feels blurry, though. This isn’t the trans activism to which we’ve become used in recent years, whereby sex distinctions are completely denied. Everyone knows, really, that Byron is still male. In the final episode when — now with long hair, make-up and typically female clothing — he briefly hooks up with an ex-lover, there’s no sense that they are suddenly no longer two gay men.

To this extent, you see glimpses of what trans inclusion could be. This is something that could, ironically, be summed up by that fateful JK Rowling tweet: “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security.”

If you know nothing about modern-day trans activism, What It Feels Like For A Girl creates the impression that it isn’t about enforcing a lie, but about making the best of the options you have. Byron and his friends’ understanding of “girl” may not be particularly feminist, but the Byron who reintroduces himself as Paris in the final scene does not seem to be claiming to be biologically female.

This is more reasonable than the trans maximalism we’ve come to expect of late, but not enough to let the series off the hook in terms of its politics. The other side to Paris Lees — the side that tempered the ranting about “the TERFS and the Meanies” — has always been a seductive mix of vulnerability and dark humour. This comes through strongly here, making the series both very watchable but also dangerously trivialising in relation to certain topics. Child sexual exploitation is treated light-heartedly, with the schoolboy Byron seeming to find being preyed on by adult males (mostly) absurd and amusing. “I’ve got something they want,” he tells his female-support-character classmate, “and it gives me power.” It’s a way in which many abused children recast their experiences as chosen (to then have this cast as “how girls feel” seems especially insensitive in light of recent grooming scandals).

It’s impossible to watch What It Feels Like For A Girl without wanting Byron to win out over the bullies. The “victory” of the real-life Lees has, however, taken the form of kicking out at women who would have been on his side, and leaving other young people — equally sidelined, but who cannot market themselves so well — to fend for themselves.

In terms of the series, Byron does “win”. He leaves home and finds friends out in the big, bad world. The story, though, feels undermined by the idea that it’s about a woman. It’s not, and it would have been much stronger and truer without the trans derailment. At a time when many are crying out for stories about the challenges of boyhood, this could have been a contender.

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Victoria Smith is a writer and creator of the Glosswitch newsletter.

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