I Believed Myself to Be a Lesbian - David Bowie Enabled Me to Realize the Reality

In 2011, several years before the celebrated David Bowie exhibition opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had only been with men, one of whom I had married. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

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

I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - prior to digital connectivity. As teenagers, my peers and I lacked access to Reddit or video sharing sites to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; conversely, we turned toward pop stars, and during the 80s, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported male clothing, Boy George embraced women's fashion, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and precise cut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My husband moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw revisiting the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a seasonal visit returning to England at the museum, anticipating that maybe he could provide clarity.

I didn't know exactly what I was seeking when I entered the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, discover a clue to my own identity.

Before long I was facing a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to end. Precisely when I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I aimed to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I craved his slender frame and his precise cut, his strong features and his flat chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

It took me additional years before I was prepared. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and started wearing men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before surgical procedures - the potential for denial and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, following that period, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I anticipated came true.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to play with gender as Bowie had - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.