I Thought That I Identified As a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Discover the Actual Situation

During 2011, several years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie display opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a lesbian. Until that moment, I had only been with men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single caregiver to four kids, residing in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my personal gender and sexual orientation, seeking out answers.

My birthplace was England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. During our youth, my companions and myself didn't have Reddit or video sharing sites to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to pop stars, and during the 80s, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman wore girls' clothes, and bands such as well-known groups featured performers who were publicly out.

I craved his slender frame and sharp haircut, his strong features and flat chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I lived riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the V&A, with the expectation that maybe he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain precisely what I was searching for when I stepped inside the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a clue to my true nature.

I soon found myself positioned before a small television screen where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three backing singers in feminine attire clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the poise of born divas; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Positioned as supporting acts, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their pronounced make-up, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to end. Just as I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I desired to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I wanted his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. And yet I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a different challenge, but transitioning was a much more frightening prospect.

It took me further time before I was prepared. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and commenced using men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, walked differently, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a engagement in New York City, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag since birth. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor not long after. The process required additional years before my transition was complete, but none of the things I anticipated occurred.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.