I Believed That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Helped Me Uncover the Reality

In 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Previously, I had only been with men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, residing in the United States.

During this period, I had started questioning both my sense of self and attraction preferences, searching for understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. As teenagers, my friends and I were without social platforms or digital content to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman embraced feminine outfits, and musical acts such as popular ensembles featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I desired his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his strong features and flat chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I returned to femininity when I opted for marriage. My husband transferred our home to the United States in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the gallery, hoping that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, encounter a hint about my true nature.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a modest display where the music video for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three backing singers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of connection for the supporting artists, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and restrictive outfits.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (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 wanted his lean physique and his precise cut, his strong features and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was a different challenge, but gender transition was a much more frightening possibility.

I required additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I did my best to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and commenced using masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a presentation in the American metropolis, following that period, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I was unable to continue acting to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge 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 in costume throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I could.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor soon after. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared came true.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.