I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Gay Woman - David Bowie Helped Me Realize the Truth

During 2011, a few years prior to the celebrated David Bowie exhibition opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I declared myself a gay woman. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, residing in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my personal gender and attraction preferences, looking to find answers.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my peers and I didn't have social platforms or video sharing sites to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore male clothing, Boy George wore women's fashion, and musical acts such as popular ensembles featured artists who were openly gay.

I wanted his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his strong features and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I spent my time driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My husband moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw returning to the masculinity I had once given up.

Considering that no artist challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the museum, hoping that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was seeking when I stepped inside the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, encounter a clue to my own identity.

I soon found myself facing a modest display where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking sharp in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of born divas; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were longing for it all to be over. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I desired his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his male chest; I sought to become the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. However I was unable to, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as gay was one thing, but transitioning was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me several more years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my feminine garments, trimmed my tresses and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I paused at surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a engagement in New York City, five years later, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a physician not long after. It took additional years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I feared materialized.

I maintain many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to play with gender following Bowie's example - and since I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.