I Believed I Was a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Uncover the Truth

In 2011, a couple of years before the celebrated David Bowie exhibition opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated parent to four children, residing in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my gender identity and attraction preferences, searching for understanding.

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. When we were young, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or digital content to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; rather, we turned toward pop stars, and in that decade, artists were challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman wore women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were publicly out.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his strong features and flat chest. I wanted to embody the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I spent my time operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My spouse transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw back towards the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the gallery, with the expectation that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain precisely what I was seeking when I entered the display - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, stumble across a insight into my own identity.

Before long I was positioned before a small television screen where the film clip for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and restrictive outfits.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I craved his slender frame and his precise cut, his strong features and his male chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. However I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was a different challenge, but gender transition was a much more frightening prospect.

I required several more years before I was prepared. In the meantime, I did my best to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and started wearing men's clothes.

I sat differently, walked differently, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at medical intervention - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in the American metropolis, five years later, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I worried about materialized.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to explore expression following Bowie's example - and since I'm at peace with myself, I can.