Paris Lees – trans author and activist, now hit screenwriter – is reading to me her favourite response to her autobiographical BBC show, What It Feels Like for a Girl, from her iPhone. It wasn’t The Guardian calling it “deeply disturbing and totally fearless”. Or GQ opining that it is the “most interesting thing the BBC has made since I May Destroy You”. It was some man on X (Twitter) saying, “First time [I’ve] ever been able to watch slash put up with the antics of bent weird queens and strange MEN. Good program [sic], that. Never will get it, never want to, but the team behind that: well done.” Lees releases her phone from the clutch of her pearlescent acrylic nails, and says, “Honestly, to me, that is so much more authentic.”
That phone has been in the 38-year-old’s hand for the past few weeks as she’s been stunned, bowled over following the show’s success, even among some transphobes and the right-wing press. While it might be a surprise to Lees, it’s not to me: it’d be difficult to be unimpressed by the gritty and nuanced saga that sees a working-class teenage trans character Byron, based on Lees, go through more trials and tribulations than contestants on a series of Squid Game. “I’ve made a TV show that’s got 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. Nobody is more shocked than me. I’m not saying it in an arrogant way, I cannot believe I did that. Could it actually be that I did it and it turned out well?” she says, almost shyly.
