I Thought Myself to Be a Lesbian - David Bowie Helped Me Discover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie exhibition launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had only been with men, with one partner I had wed. By 2013, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated mother of four, residing in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for answers.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. When we were young, my companions and myself lacked access to Reddit or YouTube to consult when we had questions about sex; conversely, we sought guidance from pop stars, and throughout the eighties, artists were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, Boy George adopted girls' clothes, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I desired his slender frame and precise cut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My husband moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw returning to the manhood I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a summer trip visiting Britain at the museum, with the expectation that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain specifically what I was seeking when I stepped inside the display - possibly I anticipated that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, encounter a insight into my own identity.

Before long I was facing a small television screen where the visual presentation for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three accompanying performers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had encountered in real life, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; conversely they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - frustrated and eager, 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 ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I desired his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. However I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as gay was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier outlook.

I required further time before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and began donning male attire.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a engagement in New York City, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician shortly afterwards. It took additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I accept this. I sought the ability to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.