I Believed I Was a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Uncover the Reality

In 2011, a few years before the renowned David Bowie display opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had wed. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced parent to four children, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and romantic inclinations, looking to find answers.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I were without online forums or YouTube to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we looked to music icons, and during the 80s, artists were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer wore feminine outfits, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured performers who were openly gay.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his defined jawline and male chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I spent my time riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My spouse relocated us to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a summer trip back to the UK at the museum, hoping that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the exhibition - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, encounter a clue to my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a modest display where the visual presentation for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing crowded round a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had seen personally, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of connection for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to be over. Just as I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I knew for certain that I desired to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I wanted his narrow hips and his precise cut, his strong features and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. However I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was one thing, but gender transition was a significantly scarier outlook.

I required several more years before I was willing. In the meantime, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I could.

I booked myself in to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I feared came true.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and since I'm content with my physical form, I can.