I Thought That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - David Bowie Helped Me Uncover the Truth

During 2011, a few years ahead of the renowned David Bowie show launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a lesbian. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had entered matrimony with. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced parent to four children, residing in the United States.

At that time, I had started questioning both my gender identity and sexual orientation, searching for answers.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have online forums or digital content to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from pop stars, and in that decade, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported male clothing, The Culture Club frontman wore feminine outfits, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were publicly out.

I desired his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and flat chest. I wanted to embody the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I lived riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I chose to get married. My husband moved our family to the US in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an irresistible pull revisiting the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the museum, with the expectation that possibly he could provide clarity.

I didn't know precisely what I was searching for when I walked into the display - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a insight into my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a small television screen where the music video for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of born divas; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the supporting artists, 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 - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to end. Just as I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I desired to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I wanted his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his male chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

I needed several more years before I was ready. In the meantime, I made every effort to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and began donning male attire.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the potential for denial and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a presentation in New York City, after half a decade, I revisited. 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 became completely convinced that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I worried about materialized.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I can.