I Believed That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Discover the Reality

Back in 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I came out as a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had wed. Two years later, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated parent to four children, residing in the US.

At that time, I had commenced examining both my personal gender and attraction preferences, searching for answers.

Born in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, musicians were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore masculine attire, Boy George adopted women's fashion, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I passed my days riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to femininity when I opted for marriage. My partner relocated us to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Considering that no artist challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I chose to devote an open day during a seasonal visit visiting Britain at the museum, anticipating that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the show - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, stumble across a hint about my personal self.

Before long I was positioned before a compact monitor where the film clip for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while to the side 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 born divas; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the supporting artists, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. 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! Surprise. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I knew for certain that I desired to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I desired his slender frame and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, Bowie's German period. However I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as queer was one thing, but transitioning was a significantly scarier outlook.

I needed several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and began donning male attire.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a engagement in New York City, five years later, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the same video in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. It took further time before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I worried about occurred.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to play with gender like Bowie did - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.