I Thought That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Discover the Reality

Back in 2011, a few years before the renowned David Bowie exhibition launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced parent to four children, making my home in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and attraction preferences, searching for answers.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. As teenagers, my friends and I didn't have Reddit or YouTube to consult when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; conversely, we turned toward music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned male clothing, The flamboyant singer adopted women's fashion, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I craved his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and flat chest. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My spouse transferred our home to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the manhood I had once given up.

Since nobody experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a summer trip back to the UK at the gallery, anticipating that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was looking for when I walked into the display - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, discover a insight into my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a compact monitor 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 accompanying performers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these characters failed to move around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. At the moment when I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I wanted his slender frame and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as homosexual was a separate matter, but transitioning was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me further time before I was willing. In the meantime, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and commenced using male attire.

I changed my seating posture, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in New York City, five years later, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been in costume all his life. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I made arrangements to see a physician not long after. The process required further time before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.