I Believed Myself to Be a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Made Me Realize the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, a few years prior to the renowned David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had wed. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated parent to four children, living in the United States.

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

Born in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. During our youth, my peers and I lacked access to social platforms or video sharing sites to reference when we had questions about sex; conversely, we looked to celebrity musicians, and during the 80s, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist wore male clothing, Boy George adopted girls' clothes, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I desired his narrow hips and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw back towards the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the museum, anticipating that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the display - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, discover a hint about my own identity.

I soon found myself facing a small television screen where the film clip for "that track" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked unenthused and frustrated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and restrictive outfits.

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Surprise. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I aimed to remove everything and become Bowie too. I craved his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. However I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I needed additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and started wearing men's clothes.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, five years later, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume all his life. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a physician soon after. It took another few years before my transition was complete, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and since I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.