I Thought That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Realize the Reality

During 2011, a couple of years before the renowned David Bowie display opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I came out as a lesbian. Up to that point, I had only been with men, one of whom I had wed. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single mother of four, making my home in the United States.

At that time, I had started questioning both my gender identity and attraction preferences, looking to find understanding.

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my friends and I lacked access to social platforms or video sharing sites to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, artists were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman wore women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were publicly out.

I desired his slender frame and sharp haircut, his strong features and flat chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull revisiting the manhood I had once given up.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit returning to England at the gallery, hoping that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was searching for when I stepped inside the exhibition - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a hint about my own identity.

I soon found myself standing in front of a modest display where the film clip for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of born divas; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to end. Just as I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I aimed to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I desired his lean physique and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

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

I needed additional years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and commenced using masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and regret had left me paralysed with fear.

Once the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, after half a decade, 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.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician not long after. I needed another few 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'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.