I Was Convinced I Was a Lesbian - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

In 2011, a couple of years prior to the celebrated David Bowie show debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a lesbian. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced parent to four children, living in the United States.

At that time, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. During our youth, my friends and I were without social platforms or YouTube to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we looked to celebrity musicians, and during the 80s, everyone was playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore male clothing, Boy George wore girls' clothes, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to femininity when I decided to wed. My husband moved our family to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull revisiting the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist played with gender quite like David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip visiting Britain at the museum, hoping that possibly he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was looking for when I walked into the exhibition - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, encounter a insight into my personal self.

I soon found myself standing in front of a modest display where the film clip for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking polished in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three men dressed in drag, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I knew for certain that I wanted to remove everything and emulate the artist. I desired his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his male chest; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a different challenge, but transitioning was a much more frightening outlook.

I required several more years before I was willing. In the meantime, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and commenced using male attire.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

Once the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a engagement in the American metropolis, following that period, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. 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 challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor soon after. The process required another few years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I anticipated materialized.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to play with gender like Bowie did - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.