I Was Convinced I Was a Gay Woman - David Bowie Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie display opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I came out as a lesbian. Until that moment, I had only been with men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

At that time, I had commenced examining both my personal gender and romantic inclinations, seeking out answers.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my friends and I were without Reddit or digital content to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to music icons, and in that decade, musicians were challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman adopted girls' clothes, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I desired his slender frame and precise cut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My partner transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw back towards the manhood I had once given up.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to devote an open day during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the museum, with the expectation that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the show - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a small television screen where the music video for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Surprise. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I desired his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was one thing, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting outlook.

I required further time before I was willing. Meanwhile, I did my best to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my feminine garments, trimmed my tresses and commenced using male attire.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a stint in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician not long after. It took further time before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I feared came true.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to explore expression following Bowie's example - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I can.