I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Made Me Realize the Reality

Back in 2011, several years before the celebrated David Bowie show debuted at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had entered matrimony with. By 2013, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated parent to four children, making my home in the US.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for clarity.

Born in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. As teenagers, my friends and I didn't have Reddit or digital content to consult when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we looked to pop stars, and in that decade, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer adopted feminine outfits, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured members who were publicly out.

I desired his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I spent my time driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to femininity when I opted for marriage. My husband relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I decided to devote an open day during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the museum, anticipating that maybe he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain exactly what I was looking for when I stepped inside the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, stumble across a insight into my personal self.

Before long I was facing a compact monitor where the film clip for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of inherent stars; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to be over. At the moment when I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I craved his lean physique and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was a different challenge, but transitioning was a much more frightening outlook.

I needed several more years before I was willing. During that period, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and began donning male attire.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a engagement in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume since birth. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I was able to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor soon after. I needed additional years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I worried about came true.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I sought the ability to play with gender as Bowie had - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I can.