I Believed That I Identified As a Gay Woman - David Bowie Made Me Realize the Reality

During 2011, several years ahead of the renowned David Bowie exhibition debuted at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a lesbian. Previously, I had only been with men, one of whom I had entered matrimony with. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated mother of four, living in the America.

At that time, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. As teenagers, my friends and I were without social platforms or YouTube to consult when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, Boy George wore feminine outfits, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I aimed to personify 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 opted for marriage. My husband relocated us to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the gallery, with the expectation that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain precisely what I was looking for when I entered the show - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, consequently, discover a insight into my personal self.

Before long I was positioned before a small television screen where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three accompanying performers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of connection for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in feminine attire - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to be over. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore 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.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to remove everything and become Bowie too. I desired his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I required further time before I was ready. Meanwhile, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and threw away all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and started wearing masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

When the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a engagement in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I couldn't go on pretending to be something I was not.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume since birth. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required additional years before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to play with gender following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.