I Believed Myself to Be a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Discover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a few years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had married. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single mother of four, making my home in the United States.

At that time, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, searching for answers.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. When we were young, my peers and I were without online forums or video sharing sites to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from pop stars, and during the 80s, everyone was playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman wore feminine outfits, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his slender frame and precise cut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I sought to become the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to femininity when I chose to get married. My partner moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the masculinity I had once given up.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the V&A, hoping that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the exhibition - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a insight into my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a compact monitor where the music video for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking polished in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had encountered in real life, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of born divas; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in feminine attire - irritated and impatient, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. Just as I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I aimed to remove everything and emulate the artist. I desired his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. However I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as homosexual was a different challenge, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I needed additional years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and discarded all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and commenced using masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had left me paralysed with fear.

When the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I was unable to continue acting to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag all his life. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I made arrangements to see a doctor not long after. I needed another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the fears I anticipated occurred.

I maintain many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to explore expression following Bowie's example - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.