I Believed Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Made Me Discover the Actual Situation

In 2011, several years before the acclaimed David Bowie display debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a gay woman. Previously, I had only been with men, including one I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single caregiver to four kids, making my home in the United States.

During this period, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, looking to find answers.

My birthplace was England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. During our youth, my peers and I didn't have Reddit or video sharing sites to reference when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The flamboyant singer embraced girls' clothes, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured performers who were openly gay.

I craved his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the V&A, anticipating that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I didn't know specifically what I was looking for when I walked into the show - possibly I anticipated that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, encounter a clue to my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a modest display where the music video for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the poise of natural performers; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the backing singers, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Precisely when I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I wanted his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as homosexual was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I required several more years before I was ready. In the meantime, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and started wearing masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a stint in the American metropolis, five years later, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag all his life. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I can.