I Believed That I Identified As a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Discover the Reality

In 2011, a few years ahead of the acclaimed David Bowie show debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a lesbian. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

At that time, I had started questioning both my gender identity and romantic inclinations, looking to find clarity.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. As teenagers, my companions and myself lacked access to social platforms or YouTube to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore male clothing, The Culture Club frontman wore feminine outfits, and bands such as popular ensembles featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and precise cut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I sought to become the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the museum, with the expectation that possibly he could provide clarity.

I didn't know specifically what I was seeking when I entered the show - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, encounter a insight into my true nature.

I soon found myself standing in front of a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were longing for it all to be over. Just as I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and emulate the artist. I wanted his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, Bowie's German period. And yet I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was a separate matter, but gender transition was a significantly scarier possibility.

I needed additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and commenced using men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I was unable to continue acting to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I anticipated materialized.

I maintain many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to explore expression like Bowie did - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.