I Believed Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Music Icon Made Me Discover the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, several years ahead of the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a lesbian. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, residing in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my gender identity and attraction preferences, searching for clarity.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or digital content to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and in that decade, everyone was playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer wore male clothing, The flamboyant singer adopted feminine outfits, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were openly gay.

I desired his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and flat chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw returning to the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to devote an open day during a summer trip back to the UK at the museum, with the expectation that maybe he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the exhibition - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a compact monitor where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals failed to move around the stage with the poise of natural performers; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to end. Just as I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I aimed to remove everything and become Bowie too. I wanted his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as homosexual was a separate matter, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I needed several more years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I did my best to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and began donning masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before medical intervention - the chance of refusal and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

When the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a engagement in New York City, following that period, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I could.

I made arrangements to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I anticipated occurred.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to play with gender as Bowie had - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.