I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Made Me Discover the Truth

Back in 2011, several years before the celebrated David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a gay woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, making my home in the US.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my gender identity and attraction preferences, searching for understanding.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my companions and myself lacked access to Reddit or video sharing sites to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman embraced women's fashion, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his strong features and flat chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I passed my days driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My spouse moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull back towards the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip back to the UK at the V&A, with the expectation that maybe he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was seeking when I stepped inside the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, encounter a insight into my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a small television screen where the music video for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking sharp in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of inherent stars; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the accompanying performers, with their pronounced make-up, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I craved his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I sought to become the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting outlook.

I needed several more years before I was willing. In the meantime, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and started wearing masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I could.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. It took further time before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about came true.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to play with gender like Bowie did - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.