I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - David Bowie Made Me Discover the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, a few years prior to the renowned David Bowie display launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a gay woman. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated mother of four, residing in the US.

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

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I didn't have social platforms or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; conversely, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, musicians were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned male clothing, The Culture Club frontman embraced women's fashion, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his strong features and flat chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to femininity when I chose to get married. My spouse relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw back towards the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the V&A, hoping that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I didn't know specifically what I was looking for when I entered the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, stumble across a insight into my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a small television screen where the visual presentation for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the confidence of born divas; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

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

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to be over. Just as I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I desired to remove everything and become Bowie too. I desired his lean physique and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his male chest; I sought to become the slender-shaped, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was a separate matter, but transitioning was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I made every effort to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my skirts and dresses, trimmed my tresses and commenced using masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, following that period, I went back. 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 became completely convinced that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume all his life. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a physician soon after. It took another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I feared materialized.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to play with gender as Bowie had - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.