I Believed That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Made Me Discover the Reality

In 2011, a few years before the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a gay woman. Until that moment, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced parent to four children, residing in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for answers.

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my friends and I lacked access to Reddit or video sharing sites to turn to when we had questions about sex; rather, we turned toward music icons, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported male clothing, The Culture Club frontman embraced girls' clothes, and bands such as well-known groups featured performers who were publicly out.

I desired his slender frame and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and male chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw returning to the masculinity I had once given up.

Since nobody experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to devote an open day during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the gallery, hoping that maybe he could provide clarity.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for when I walked into the display - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, discover a hint about my own identity.

Before long I was positioned before a modest display where the film clip for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking polished in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had seen personally, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of natural performers; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to end. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I craved his lean physique and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. And yet I was unable to, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I needed several more years before I was ready. During that period, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and began donning male attire.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I paused at medical intervention - the potential for denial and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem 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 now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a medical professional not long after. The process required further time before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I feared occurred.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I can.