I Believed Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Realize the Actual Situation

In 2011, a few years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a gay woman. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had wed. By 2013, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, making my home in the United States.

At that time, I had started questioning both my sense of self and romantic inclinations, seeking out understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my companions and myself were without Reddit or video sharing sites to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to pop stars, and during the 80s, artists were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman wore girls' clothes, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I desired his lean physique and precise cut, his defined jawline and flat chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one played with gender quite like 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 guide my understanding.

I was uncertain exactly what I was seeking when I stepped inside the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, encounter a hint about my own identity.

I soon found myself standing in front of a modest display where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three supporting vocalists in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters failed to move around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. Just as I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup 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 shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I desired his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a different challenge, but gender transition was a significantly scarier prospect.

I required further time before I was ready. During that period, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and started wearing masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be something I was not.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; 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, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor soon after. It took additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared occurred.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to play with gender as Bowie had - and since I'm content with my physical form, I can.