I Believed I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Realize the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, a couple of years before the acclaimed David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a gay woman. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had married. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced parent to four children, making my home in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and attraction preferences, seeking out understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. When we were young, my friends and I didn't have social platforms or digital content to reference when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; conversely, we turned toward music icons, and throughout the eighties, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported male clothing, The flamboyant singer adopted girls' clothes, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured artists who were openly gay.

I craved his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and flat chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I spent my time riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to femininity when I decided to wed. My husband relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an irresistible pull revisiting the male identity I had once given up.

Given that no one experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the V&A, anticipating that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain precisely what I was searching for when I stepped inside the show - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a small television screen where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the poise of born divas; conversely they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the boredom 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 understanding for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to be over. Precisely when I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I wanted to rip it all off and emulate the artist. I wanted his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a different challenge, but transitioning was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me further time before I was ready. During that period, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and began donning masculine outfits.

I sat differently, walked differently, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, 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 was absolutely sure that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor not long after. The process required further time before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I feared came true.

I maintain many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to explore expression following Bowie's example - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.