I Believed I Was a Lesbian - David Bowie Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years before the renowned David Bowie exhibition debuted at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a newly single parent to four children, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my sense of self and romantic inclinations, looking to find clarity.

Born in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have social platforms or video sharing sites to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman wore women's fashion, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were publicly out.

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

During the nineties, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My husband moved our family to the US in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a summer trip returning to England at the museum, with the expectation that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain precisely what I was looking for when I stepped inside the display - possibly I anticipated that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, consequently, encounter a hint about my true nature.

Before long I was facing a small television screen where the music video for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three backing singers wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals failed to move around the stage with the confidence of born divas; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and restrictive outfits.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. Precisely when I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I aimed to rip it all off and emulate the artist. I wanted his narrow hips and his precise cut, his strong features and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as gay was one thing, but personal transformation was a much more frightening possibility.

I required several more years before I was ready. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and began donning masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, five years later, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I anticipated came true.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to play with gender as Bowie had - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I can.