What It Feels Like for a Girl

I loved it so much, it shows how hard it was for lgbtq+ people in the 2000s. The acting was also my biggest amazement from this show, the actors need a good applause for the amazing work in this series. In my modest opinion, this is a must watch for people. I'm literaly gonna tell everyone that sees this that if you haven't watched it, you should. Plus charecter development was so good for a short series like this, I'm very surprised that they pulled it off very well. In conclusion, this is a work of art, that really deserves lots of attention, and I recommend it to everyone cause it's queer and proud. Luv yall.

I can understand how parts of Byron's experience may feel foreign to some viewers, but for anyone who came of age gay, trans, or queer around the turn of the millennium, this is a profound and often heartbreaking ride through our collective memory.

I saw myself in the gifted young gay boy who learned to wield wit as both armor and weapon, keeping me safe, pushing others away, and occasionally landing me in trouble. I was lucky enough to be more of a nerd, excelling in school early on and spared some of Byron's pain. But later in life, I too discovered how seductive the gay party scene can become.

So many of us have lived those questionable love affairs, those dizzying moments of clarity ("this is definitely not the room I want to be in") and yet also the euphoria of finding your people. A place where your femininity can finally exhale. Where a sharp tongue and a willingness to say yes to chaos feels like a skeleton key to every door.

The acting here is sublime: heart-wrenching and exquisitely funny. The settings are often bleak, rundown, almost depressing, yet pulsing with life. The glamour exists only in their heads, their hearts, and the chemical-fueled escapes from reality. The director and creative team captured every nuance.

I created an account just to write this review. I was that moved.

The only bad thing is that it's over in eight episodes.

First four episodes felt so timely, tight, subversive and is some of the best looking TV in recent memory.

I loved how uncomfortable the first few episodes make you feel, it's a tough watch. The relationships, specifically between Byron and their parents, were unconventional and complex and really interesting. It's just a shame that the latter half of the series doesn't really keep up with what was promised.

It seems to lose focus and derails for me. Some characters set up to be of importance are completely dropped and there are a few decisions later on that have little logic to them at all.

By the end I sort of felt nothing for these characters, which is such a shame considering how much I was rooting for them to begin with.

I felt like it could have been such a tight 4-6 episode series focussing on the earlier storyline.

Still enjoyable and totally worth watching, just could have been so much tighter.

I watched all episodes in one sitting. It recreated the era particularly well. An outstanding cast with impeccable direction. Ellis (Byron) was in just about every scene and was perfect casting. I laughed, cried, laughed some more until I couldn't breathe. Emotional and outstanding drama. The music was also a great reminder of the nightlife scene 25 years ago, it had a way of transporting you back all those years ago without feeling that time had moved too much. A couple of familiar faces popped up that added to the enjoyment as they were unfamiliar roles for those actors. Well done to all for the journey.

This is a working class story and it doesn't matter whether you like boys or girls; it's about the life of a kid, and how that kid tries to negotiate an alien world, sometimes making friends with the wrong people, and sometimes ignoring the love of the right people - like we all do. If this doesn't win all the awards, if all the cast don't win every accolade going, and if every man, woman, gay or straight, transgender, transsexual and everybody else with a heartbeat don't lift Ellis Howard up high on their shoulders, to be carried all the way to stardom and glory or whatever Ellis desires, this is a cruel world indeed.

None of the actors in this - and I had to keep reminding myself that's just what they were: actors - none of them broke that fragile glass between us and the drama, ever; they really were, for those short few hours at least, the characters they played. And when Byron said those last words to his mum I cried.