I Thought Myself to Be a Gay Woman - David Bowie Enabled Me to Discover the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, a couple of years prior to the renowned David Bowie show launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a gay woman. Up to that point, I had only been with men, one of whom I had wed. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated mother of four, making my home in the US.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and romantic inclinations, searching for answers.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my friends and I lacked access to online forums or video sharing sites to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and in that decade, artists were challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman embraced women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were publicly out.

I craved his narrow hips and precise cut, his defined jawline and male chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

In that decade, I passed my days riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I chose to get married. My husband relocated us to the US in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the manhood I had earlier relinquished.

Considering that no artist played with gender quite like David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a summer trip back to the UK at the gallery, hoping that maybe he could help me figure it out.

I didn't know exactly what I was seeking when I entered the display - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, stumble across a hint about my own identity.

Before long I was facing a modest display where the music video for "the iconic song" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of connection for the backing singers, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to end. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I desired to remove everything and become Bowie too. I wanted his lean physique and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Bowie's German period. And yet I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as gay was one thing, but personal transformation was a much more frightening prospect.

I needed several more years before I was prepared. Meanwhile, I made every effort to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and discarded all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and commenced using men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be an identity that didn't fit.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. It took further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I worried about materialized.

I maintain 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 play with gender following Bowie's example - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.