I Thought That I Identified As a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Helped Me Uncover the Reality

During 2011, a few years ahead of the renowned David Bowie show opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had only been with men, one of whom I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced parent to four children, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my gender identity and sexual orientation, looking to find clarity.

I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my companions and myself were without social platforms or YouTube to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned male clothing, Boy George wore girls' clothes, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his strong features and masculine torso. I wanted to embody the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I lived riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My spouse relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip back to the UK at the museum, hoping that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain exactly what I was looking for when I walked into the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, discover a hint about my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a modest display where the visual presentation for "that track" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking sharp in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. Just as I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and become Bowie too. I craved his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a different challenge, but transitioning was a much more frightening possibility.

I needed additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my feminine garments, trimmed my tresses and commenced using men's clothes.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, following that period, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional soon after. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I anticipated occurred.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to explore expression as Bowie had - and since I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.