I Believed Myself to Be a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Realize the Reality

In 2011, several years prior to the renowned David Bowie show opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a gay woman. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, one of whom I had married. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated parent to four children, living in the United States.

At that time, I had commenced examining both my sense of self and romantic inclinations, searching for answers.

Born in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I were without Reddit or YouTube 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 Eurythmics singer donned boys' clothes, Boy George wore women's fashion, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured members who were publicly out.

I craved his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his strong features and masculine torso. I sought to become the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I passed my days riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to femininity when I decided to wed. My husband moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw back towards the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip visiting Britain at the gallery, with the expectation that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain specifically what I was seeking when I stepped inside the display - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, discover a hint about my true nature.

Before long I was standing in front of a modest display where the film clip for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three backing singers wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had seen personally, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of inherent stars; conversely they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. Just as I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I craved his lean physique and his precise cut, his strong features and his male chest; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, Bowie's German period. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as queer was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier prospect.

I required further time before I was prepared. In the meantime, I did my best to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and threw away all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and began donning men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a stint in New York City, five years later, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a medical professional soon after. It took further time before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I worried about materialized.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.