I Believed I Was a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Uncover the Reality

Back in 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show debuted at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a lesbian. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, one of whom I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated parent to four children, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my personal gender and attraction preferences, searching for answers.

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. As teenagers, my peers and I were without Reddit or YouTube to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; rather, we looked to pop stars, and during the 80s, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported boys' clothes, Boy George adopted feminine outfits, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured performers who were publicly out.

I wanted his slender frame and sharp haircut, his strong features and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I lived riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to femininity when I decided to wed. My spouse moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit returning to England at the museum, hoping that maybe he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, stumble across a clue to my own identity.

Before long I was standing in front of a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the primary position, looking sharp in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists in feminine attire clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of born divas; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and showed impatience at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to end. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I desired to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I wanted his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. However I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a much more frightening possibility.

I needed several more years before I was willing. In the meantime, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and commenced using male attire.

I sat differently, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the potential for denial and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I could.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor soon after. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the fears I anticipated materialized.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and since I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.