What It Feels Like For a Girl’s ending is a liberating light at the end of a very dark and tumultuous tunnel. I may be a tad too young to know what nightlife in the 2000s felt like, especially in a small town near Nottingham, but What It Feels Like For a Girl certainly encapsulated everything that parents of young teens at the time worried about. The drugs, the partying, and everything else you can imagine you’d want to protect your 15-year-old from. This show, based on a memoir of the same name, tells the story of Byron, a 15-year-old who finds himself questioning his identity like a game of truth or dare, a common question of everyday life, before he finally realizes that what he’s been feeling isn’t uncommon. The show tells the story of Byron’s journey, of how he goes from a scared young boy to a woman who protects the light inside of her and keeps it bright and shiny. It’s certainly a moving piece of media that will somehow make you feel understood, even if your experiences are entirely different from Byron’s. But having said that, let’s jump into the ending of the series.
Spoiler Alert
What’s The Turning Point In Byron’s Life?
In the final episode of What It Feels Like For a Girl, Byron returned from prison and decided to live as close to a normal life as possible. She has now fully accepted her transsexual identity, and within the time she was away, it seems the world has changed more than she could’ve imagined. Or maybe you could say prison life changed her forever. One fine day, while playing bingo with her grandmother, Byron meets Max, her first-ever boyfriend, again. Max was kicked out of Byron’s life back when her mom believed Max was using the 15-year-old boy, Byron, for sexual favors. Of course, she didn’t know at the time that Max might’ve been the one good thing in Byron’s life, and she messed it up by telling him that Byron’s dad would beat him up if he showed up near him ever again. At the time, that seemed like the end of it all, but in the present day, Max’s return feels like a fairytale ending for Byron.
When Byron sees Max, she runs the other way, but he invites her over. She doesn’t give in. However, everything changes when Mommar, Byron’s grandmother, ends up coughing up blood. Byron and her mom learn that their beloved Mommar is going to die of cancer very soon. Byron’s closest to her grandmother, and she seems to be the only person who truly understands her, so she’s afraid she’ll end up lonely when she’s gone. However, Byron’s friends show up and promise to be there for her, as they always have been. They do have to stick together, as Lady Die said. But By ends up visiting Max in the middle of this and feels like he’s the perfect escape for her. I don’t think Max is a bad guy, or that he would’ve hurt By if she’d decided to stay back at his, but she’d have missed out on an entire life. Finally, when Mommar dies, Byron’s mom makes a call to Brighton University, where she’s meant to be giving an interview, and asks for an extension because her grandmother’s just died.
At this point, By has nowhere to live. Her mom refuses to tell her second family that she’s going to have her daughter (i.e. By) stay over, so Max seems to be the only option. However, when she gets the call from the school, she knows she’ll waste away all her potential with Max, and so, to protect the light within her, she leaves, ready to give a fantastic interview. At the interview, By tells the interviewer that sitting at that table is her biggest achievement, and that she has always believed there’s a light inside of her that she must protect, and she’s made it so far, so she’s sure she can do something amazing in life. If By had decided to stay back with Max, she may have been stuck in a past she’s always wanted to escape. All her life, she’s talked about wanting to leave Hucknall, but if she’d chosen Max, she’d have chosen to stay back, which was never in the books for her.
Does Byron’s Mum Accept Her?
In What It Feels Like For a Girl’s ending, Byron finds herself saying goodbye to her friends after asking them to follow her to Brighton. Despite everything they’ve been through, they’re still there for each other. But I suppose I understand the loneliness that Byron is afraid of, going forward. New place, new life sounds good in fairytales, but when you look back, you need someone around from that old life, too. I suppose you could say that, in a way, the light in Byron came from her grandmother, but when she died, she may have felt it fade a little bit, too. The show isn’t simply about the trans experience, in that it’s fueled by drugs and exploitation (as many of us have come to expect, especially from the time period it’s set in); it’s also about Byron’s relationships, especially with her family. Before Mommar passed, By’s mom told her that she hated her mom growing up, but later realized she made the same mistakes as her. I suppose this resentment is something that was passed down to By, too, because she resents her mum. They each have their own reasons, and apart from “daddy issues,” By’s got a seemingly “difficult” mum too. However, this all changes at the end of the show.
But Byron finally learns that it was her mum who made the call to Brighton, giving her a second chance at life, because she believes in her. Sure, it’s hard to accept that your child is different, that you can’t always protect them, and that they’re going to grow up and do their own thing at some point. Byron’s mum realizes that the only way she can be a good parent is not by simply protecting her child, but by giving her the wings to fly and protect herself. The reason she was always hesitant about By’s “transformation” was because she was worried she wouldn’t be able to live in this cruel world this way, but she finally realizes that that is not for her to decide, and all she can do is be there for By. The show ends with By going to start a new life at Brighton, stepping into her new and final name, Paris, a beautiful transformed butterfly.
