I Was Convinced I Was a Lesbian - The Music Icon Helped Me Realize the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years prior to the celebrated David Bowie display launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had wed. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated parent to four children, residing in the US.

At that time, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my companions and myself lacked access to online forums or YouTube to reference when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; conversely, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and in that decade, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer embraced girls' clothes, and musical acts such as popular ensembles featured artists who were publicly out.

I desired his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an irresistible pull back towards the manhood I had once given up.

Given that no one experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to devote an open day during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the museum, hoping that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was seeking when I entered the exhibition - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, discover a hint about my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a small television screen where the film clip for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had seen personally, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of born divas; conversely they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I desired his lean physique and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a significantly scarier outlook.

I needed further time before I was prepared. During that period, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and commenced using male attire.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

When the David Bowie display completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be something I was not.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag since birth. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician not long after. It took another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I anticipated materialized.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to explore expression as Bowie had - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.