I Thought That I Identified As a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Uncover the Truth

During 2011, several years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie exhibition debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I came out as a homosexual woman. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and sexual orientation, looking to find answers.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. As teenagers, my peers and I lacked access to social platforms or video sharing sites to consult when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we looked to music icons, and throughout the eighties, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist donned male clothing, Boy George wore girls' clothes, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured members who were openly gay.

I desired his lean physique and precise cut, his strong features and flat chest. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

In that decade, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw returning to the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the museum, with the expectation that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was looking for when I stepped inside the display - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, discover a hint about my personal self.

Before long I was standing in front of a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had seen personally, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of natural performers; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the tedium 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 empathy for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I knew for certain that I aimed to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I wanted his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. However I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I required several more years before I was willing. In the meantime, I did my best to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and began donning men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, five years later, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I was unable to continue acting to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a physician soon after. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I anticipated occurred.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I accept this. I sought the ability to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and since I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.