I Believed I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Discover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie exhibition debuted at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had only been with men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single caregiver to four kids, residing in the United States.

At that time, I had started questioning both my personal gender and romantic inclinations, searching for clarity.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my friends and I were without social platforms or video sharing sites to turn to when we had questions about sex; conversely, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman adopted women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to femininity when I decided to wed. My partner moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the V&A, hoping that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I stepped inside the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, stumble across a insight into my true nature.

Before long I was standing in front of a modest display where the visual presentation for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking sharp in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters failed to move around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. Just as I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I desired to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I wanted his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his male chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a separate matter, but transitioning was a much more frightening prospect.

It took me additional years before I was willing. In the meantime, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, trimmed my tresses and started wearing masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the chance of refusal and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a presentation in New York City, following that period, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. It took further time before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I feared came true.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I sought the ability to play with gender like Bowie did - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.