I Believed That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Music Icon Made Me Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a few years before the acclaimed David Bowie exhibition debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a lesbian. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated mother of four, living in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and sexual orientation, looking to find clarity.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my companions and myself didn't have social platforms or YouTube to consult when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; conversely, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned male clothing, The flamboyant singer embraced women's fashion, and bands such as well-known groups featured artists who were publicly out.

I wanted his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I passed my days driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My partner moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw revisiting the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the gallery, with the expectation that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was searching for when I entered the display - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a hint about my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the primary position, looking stylish in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I desired to remove everything and become Bowie too. I wanted his lean physique and his precise cut, his strong features and his masculine torso; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, Bowie's German period. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as queer was one thing, but transitioning was a significantly scarier possibility.

It took me additional years before I was willing. During that period, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and started wearing male attire.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I halted before surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a presentation in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge 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 wearing drag throughout his existence. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor shortly afterwards. I needed additional years before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about materialized.

I maintain many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.