I Believed I Was a Lesbian - David Bowie Helped Me Realize the Reality

During 2011, a couple of years before the acclaimed David Bowie display opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single parent to four children, living in the America.

At that time, I had commenced examining both my sense of self and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

Born in England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my companions and myself lacked access to social platforms or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from pop stars, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore masculine attire, Boy George embraced girls' clothes, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured performers who were openly gay.

I desired his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and flat chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I passed my days driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to femininity when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw returning to the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the museum, hoping that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was searching for when I stepped inside the display - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a insight into my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a small television screen where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking sharp in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three accompanying performers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the poise of born divas; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. Just as I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I knew for certain that I desired to remove everything and become Bowie too. I wanted his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his male chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I required further time before I was willing. In the meantime, I did my best to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and discarded all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and commenced using male attire.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and regret had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a stint in New York City, after half a decade, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. I needed additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I feared occurred.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.