I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a few years ahead of the renowned David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had wed. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced mother of four, residing in the United States.

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

Born in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my peers and I didn't have social platforms or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, artists were playing with 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 artists who were publicly out.

I desired his lean physique and precise cut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I passed my days riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My spouse moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip returning to England at the V&A, hoping that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was looking for when I entered the show - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, discover a clue to my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a modest display where the music video for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of born divas; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to end. Precisely when I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to remove everything and become Bowie too. I desired his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as queer was a different challenge, but gender transition was a much more frightening outlook.

I needed further time before I was prepared. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning male attire.

I sat differently, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been in costume since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor soon after. It took another few years before my transition was complete, but none of the things I worried about came true.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to play with gender following Bowie's example - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.