I Was Convinced I Was a Homosexual Woman - David Bowie Enabled Me to Realize the Truth

In 2011, a couple of years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie exhibition opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Until that moment, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single parent to four children, living in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my sense of self and attraction preferences, seeking out understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have Reddit or video sharing sites to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, musicians were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore male clothing, The Culture Club frontman embraced women's fashion, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his slender frame and precise cut, his strong features and flat chest. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I passed my days driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My spouse relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist played with gender quite like David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the museum, anticipating that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was seeking when I walked into the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a hint about my personal self.

Before long I was standing in front of a small television screen where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the poise of natural performers; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I desired his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, Bowie's German period. And yet I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was one thing, but transitioning was a much more frightening prospect.

It took me several more years before I was prepared. In the meantime, I did my best to embrace manhood: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, trimmed my tresses and started wearing men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and regret had left me paralysed with fear.

Once the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor soon after. The process required additional years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I worried about occurred.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.