I Believed That I Identified As a Gay Woman - David Bowie Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a lesbian. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a newly single mother of four, living in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, looking to find understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. As teenagers, my companions and myself lacked access to online forums or YouTube to reference when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we looked to music icons, and in that decade, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman embraced girls' clothes, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured performers who were openly gay.

I craved his slender frame and sharp haircut, his strong features and masculine torso. I wanted to embody the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to femininity when I chose to get married. My husband transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip visiting Britain at the museum, with the expectation that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain specifically what I was looking for when I walked into the display - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, encounter a insight into my personal self.

Before long I was positioned before a modest display where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three supporting vocalists in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had seen personally, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and emulate the artist. I desired his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, his defined jawline and his male chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

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

It took me additional years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and started wearing men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a stint in New York City, after half a decade, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag all his life. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. The process required further time before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I worried about came true.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to play with gender as Bowie had - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.