I Believed Myself to Be a Gay Woman - David Bowie Helped Me Uncover the Reality

In 2011, a couple of years prior to the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a lesbian. Up to that point, I had only been with men, one of whom I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated mother of four, residing in the US.

At that time, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and attraction preferences, looking to find understanding.

I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. During our youth, my companions and myself lacked access to Reddit or YouTube to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we sought guidance from pop stars, and in that decade, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman adopted feminine outfits, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured performers who were openly gay.

I craved his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his strong features and male chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My husband relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw returning to the manhood I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the gallery, hoping that possibly he could provide clarity.

I didn't know specifically what I was searching for when I walked into the exhibition - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, encounter a clue to my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a small television screen where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the poise of born divas; rather they looked unenthused and frustrated. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and showed impatience at the boredom of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to end. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I wanted to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I desired his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. And yet I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as queer was a different challenge, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting outlook.

I needed several more years before I was prepared. During that period, I made every effort to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and commenced using men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I paused at surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a engagement in New York City, five years later, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor soon after. It took another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I worried about came true.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a homosexual male, but I accept this. I sought the ability to explore expression following Bowie's example - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I can.