I Thought Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Discover the Reality

Back in 2011, several years before the renowned David Bowie show launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a lesbian. Until that moment, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated parent to four children, making my home in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and romantic inclinations, searching for understanding.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I were without social platforms or video sharing sites to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to music icons, and during the 80s, everyone was playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The flamboyant singer wore women's fashion, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured members who were publicly out.

I desired his slender frame and sharp haircut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

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

I didn't know precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the display - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, encounter a hint about my true nature.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a small television screen where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the poise of natural performers; rather they looked unenthused and frustrated. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the backing singers, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I aimed to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I desired his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, Bowie's German period. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as queer was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I required further time before I was willing. During that period, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning men's clothes.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician not long after. The process required another few years before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I anticipated materialized.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I can.