I Believed I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Helped Me Discover the Reality

Back in 2011, a couple of years before the celebrated David Bowie show opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a homosexual woman. Previously, I had only been with men, one of whom I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single caregiver to four kids, making my home in the United States.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and sexual orientation, looking to find understanding.

Born in England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. As teenagers, my friends and I lacked access to social platforms or YouTube to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman adopted feminine outfits, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were publicly out.

I wanted his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I passed my days riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My partner relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw back towards the manhood I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip returning to England at the V&A, hoping that maybe he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was looking for when I stepped inside the display - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my personal self.

I soon found myself standing in front of a modest display where the music video for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

In contrast to the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of born divas; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and restrictive outfits.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to end. At the moment when I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I wanted his slender frame and his precise cut, his strong features and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. And yet I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a separate matter, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I needed several more years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I did my best to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and began donning men's clothes.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, after half a decade, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag since birth. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I could.

I made arrangements to see a medical professional not long after. I needed further time before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared occurred.

I maintain many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to explore expression as Bowie had - and since I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.