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

In 2011, several years ahead of the acclaimed David Bowie display opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, making my home in the United States.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for understanding.

My birthplace was England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my friends and I were without social platforms or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; conversely, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman embraced feminine outfits, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were publicly out.

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

In that decade, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to femininity when I opted for marriage. My partner moved our family to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw revisiting the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit returning to England at the V&A, hoping that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I entered the display - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a hint about my true nature.

I soon found myself facing a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking sharp in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three accompanying performers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals failed to move around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; rather they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in feminine attire - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to be over. Precisely when I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I desired to remove everything and emulate the artist. I desired his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I sought to become the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was a separate matter, but transitioning was a much more frightening outlook.

I required several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and began donning male attire.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the potential for denial and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor soon after. I needed further time before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I worried about materialized.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I accept this. I sought the ability to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I can.