I Thought I Was a Gay Woman - David Bowie Made Me Discover the Reality

In 2011, several years before the acclaimed David Bowie display opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had married. Two years later, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated parent to four children, making my home in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and romantic inclinations, looking to find answers.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. As teenagers, my companions and myself didn't have Reddit or YouTube to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; conversely, we sought guidance from music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, Boy George embraced girls' clothes, and bands such as popular ensembles featured performers who were publicly out.

I craved his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his strong features and male chest. I wanted to embody the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I passed my days riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I chose to get married. My partner relocated us to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw returning to the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the V&A, hoping that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was seeking when I entered the display - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, discover a clue to my true nature.

Before long I was facing a small television screen where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters failed to move around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were hoping for it all to end. 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! Revelation. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I wanted his lean physique and his precise cut, his strong features and his male chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier outlook.

I required several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and started wearing masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the chance of refusal and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a engagement in New York City, following that period, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional soon after. I needed another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I worried about occurred.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm OK with that. I sought the ability to explore expression as Bowie had - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.