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

In 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I declared myself a gay woman. Previously, I had only been with men, one of whom I had married. Two years later, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated mother of four, making my home in the United States.

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

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my friends and I were without social platforms or digital content to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we sought guidance from pop stars, and throughout the eighties, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist wore masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman adopted feminine outfits, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I desired his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his strong features and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I passed my days riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My husband moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a summer trip visiting Britain at the gallery, with the expectation that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was searching for when I entered the display - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, encounter a clue to my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a modest display where the film clip for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

In contrast to the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of born divas; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and restrictive outfits.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Just as I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I wanted his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, Bowie's German period. And yet I couldn't, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as gay was one thing, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting possibility.

It took me several more years before I was prepared. During that period, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and began donning masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and regret had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag since birth. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I could.

I booked myself in to see a physician not long after. The process required another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to play with gender following Bowie's example - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.