I Was Convinced I Was a Lesbian - David Bowie Helped Me Realize the Reality

During 2011, a couple of years ahead of the renowned David Bowie show 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, one of whom I had wed. By 2013, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

At that time, I had started questioning both my personal gender and attraction preferences, seeking out clarity.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I didn't have Reddit or digital content to reference when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; rather, we looked to music icons, and during the 80s, artists were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman wore women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I wanted his slender frame and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I passed my days driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My spouse transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a summer trip visiting Britain at the gallery, anticipating that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I walked into the show - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a hint about my true nature.

Before long I was standing in front of a small television screen where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking sharp in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had seen personally, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the poise of natural performers; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I desired to remove everything and emulate the artist. I craved his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier possibility.

I needed several more years before I was willing. During that period, I made every effort to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and began donning masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the chance of refusal and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey 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 an identity that didn't fit.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I made arrangements to see a doctor not long after. It took additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I anticipated came true.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to explore expression as Bowie had - and since I'm content with my physical form, I can.