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

Back in 2011, a few years prior to the renowned David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a gay woman. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, residing in the United States.

During this period, I had started questioning both my personal gender and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my peers and I lacked access to Reddit or video sharing sites to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we sought guidance from music icons, and during the 80s, artists were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The flamboyant singer adopted women's fashion, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured artists who were openly gay.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

In that decade, I lived riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband relocated us to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an irresistible pull back towards the masculinity I had once given up.

Since nobody challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a summer trip visiting Britain at the V&A, anticipating that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was looking for when I stepped inside the display - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a insight into my own identity.

I soon found myself facing a small television screen where the visual presentation for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking sharp in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had encountered in real life, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of born divas; conversely they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of connection for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, as if they were longing for it all to end. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I desired to remove everything and become Bowie too. I wanted his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his male chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. However I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was one thing, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I needed additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I did my best to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my skirts and dresses, trimmed my tresses and began donning male attire.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my body. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician not long after. I needed another few years before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I anticipated materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.