I Believed That I Identified As a Lesbian - David Bowie Enabled Me to Realize the Truth

Back in 2011, a few years before the acclaimed David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had only been with men, including one I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced parent to four children, living in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my gender identity and attraction preferences, looking to find understanding.

Born in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. During our youth, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we sought guidance from music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned male clothing, The flamboyant singer adopted women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I wanted his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and male chest. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

Throughout the 90s, I lived operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My husband moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw back towards the masculinity I had once given up.

Given that no one played with gender quite like David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the V&A, anticipating that possibly he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was seeking when I entered the show - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, encounter a insight into my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a compact monitor where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking sharp in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals failed to move around the stage with the confidence of born divas; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their pronounced make-up, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three men dressed in drag, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I aimed to remove everything and emulate the artist. I craved his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was one thing, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting possibility.

It took me several more years before I was prepared. Meanwhile, I made every effort to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my feminine garments, trimmed my tresses and began donning male attire.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a engagement in New York City, following that period, 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 identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor soon after. The process required additional years before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I feared occurred.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to explore expression following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.