I Believed I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years ahead of the renowned David Bowie display debuted at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated mother of four, living in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my gender identity and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have social platforms or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we looked to music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist wore masculine attire, The flamboyant singer wore feminine outfits, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured members who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his strong features and flat chest. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

In that decade, I lived riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to femininity when I decided to wed. My spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull revisiting the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a summer trip returning to England at the V&A, with the expectation that possibly he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was searching for when I entered the exhibition - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, discover a insight into my personal self.

I soon found myself facing a compact monitor where the music video for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three supporting vocalists in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these characters failed to move around the stage with the poise of born divas; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I aimed to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I desired his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a separate matter, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I required further time before I was willing. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my feminine garments, trimmed my tresses and began donning masculine outfits.

I sat differently, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before medical intervention - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, following that period, I went back. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I booked myself in to see a physician soon after. The process required additional years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to explore expression as Bowie had - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I can.