I Believed That I Identified As a Gay Woman - David Bowie Helped Me Discover the Reality

In 2011, a couple of years prior to the celebrated David Bowie show opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Previously, I had only been with men, one of whom I had married. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a newly single parent to four children, living in the America.

During this period, I had started questioning both my gender identity and romantic inclinations, seeking out clarity.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my companions and myself were without social platforms or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we turned toward music icons, and during the 80s, musicians were challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported masculine attire, Boy George wore feminine outfits, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his strong features and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to femininity when I decided to wed. My spouse relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull back towards the male identity I had once given up.

Given that no one experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the V&A, hoping that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the show - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, discover a hint about my true nature.

Before long I was facing a compact monitor where the music video for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking polished in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had seen personally, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Just as I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I craved his lean physique and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as queer was a different challenge, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I needed further time before I was willing. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and commenced using men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie display completed its global journey with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume since birth. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor not long after. It took another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I feared materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.