The title suggests a generic experience of nascent womanhood, but What It Feels Like for a Girl is miles from your typical female bildungsroman. 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. (Lees herself prefers to use “they/them” for Byron now.) On a visit to a nightclub, Byron (Ellis Howard) encounters future friend Lady Die, who makes a joke about someone being a transsexual. “What’s a transsexual?” asks Byron – smiling, mystified.
This is the early 00s, you see: pre Nadia’s Big Brother win, although a couple of years post Hayley Cropper’s Corrie debut. Still, in terms of the general public’s comprehension of trans issues, it is the dark ages. (Thanks to the current Y2K fashion renaissance, however, the aesthetics are positively aspirational: dumbphones, chokers, FCUK slogan tees, Kappa tracksuits.) Yet Byron’s eventual gender transition isn’t what makes this an extraordinary and at times deeply disturbing account of a partly misspent youth. The reason 15-year-old Byron is at the aforementioned club in the first place is because they are searching for their erstwhile boyfriend Max (Sweetpea’s Calam Lynch). But Max isn’t just Byron’s first love – he’s also their pimp. A chance encounter in a public toilet introduced Byron to cottaging; they then begin performing sex acts on strangers for money. Byron’s success in the field – and enthusiasm for the job – means they are soon headhunted by Max to meet the demands of wealthier clients.
