I Believed Myself to Be a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Realize the Actual Situation

During 2011, a few years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie display debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced mother of four, making my home in the America.

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

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have Reddit or video sharing sites to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer adopted women's fashion, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured performers who were publicly out.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his strong features and male chest. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

In that decade, I passed my days riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to femininity when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an irresistible pull back towards the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the gallery, anticipating that possibly he could provide clarity.

I didn't know precisely what I was looking for when I entered the display - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, encounter a insight into my personal self.

Before long I was 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 stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists in feminine attire clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and become Bowie too. I craved his lean physique and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a separate matter, but transitioning was a significantly scarier prospect.

I required additional years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and discarded all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and started wearing masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, after half a decade, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be an identity that didn't fit.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I worried about came true.

I maintain many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to play with gender following Bowie's example - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.