I Believed Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Helped Me Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a few years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie exhibition launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, living in the United States.

At that time, I had commenced examining both my personal gender and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

Born in England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. As teenagers, my peers and I lacked access to online forums or video sharing sites to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to music icons, and during the 80s, artists were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer adopted girls' clothes, and bands such as well-known groups featured members who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and male chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My spouse transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull back towards the masculinity I had once given up.

Since nobody experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the museum, with the expectation that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I didn't know exactly what I was searching for when I entered the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my true nature.

Before long I was standing in front of a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had encountered in real life, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of born divas; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to end. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I wanted his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as queer was one thing, but gender transition was a much more frightening prospect.

It took me further time before I was ready. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my skirts and dresses, trimmed my tresses and commenced using male attire.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag since birth. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, performing under lights, and now I realized that I could.

I booked myself in to see a doctor shortly afterwards. It took additional years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I anticipated came true.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to explore expression like Bowie did - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.