I Believed That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - David Bowie Enabled Me to Realize the Reality

During 2011, several years prior to the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a lesbian. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced mother of four, residing in the America.

During this period, I had started questioning both my personal gender and attraction preferences, seeking out clarity.

Born in England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. When we were young, my peers and I were without Reddit or digital content to consult when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we looked to music icons, and during the 80s, everyone was playing with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist wore male clothing, The flamboyant singer wore girls' clothes, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured members who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I returned to femininity when I chose to get married. My husband relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw back towards the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the gallery, with the expectation that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for when I entered the exhibition - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, encounter a insight into my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was performing confidently in the primary position, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three backing singers wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the confidence of inherent stars; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to end. Precisely when I recognized my alignment with three men dressed in drag, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I wanted to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I craved his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was one thing, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier prospect.

I needed additional years before I was prepared. In the meantime, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and began donning masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, walked differently, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a presentation in the American metropolis, five years later, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I was unable to continue acting to be an identity that didn't fit.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I could.

I booked myself in to see a doctor not long after. It took additional years before my transition was complete, but none of the things I worried about occurred.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm OK with that. I sought the ability to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.