I Believed That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Discover the Truth

In 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a gay woman. Up to that point, I had only been with men, including one I had married. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced parent to four children, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my gender identity and attraction preferences, looking to find understanding.

Born in England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. When we were young, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or digital content to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we turned toward music icons, and throughout the eighties, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman adopted girls' clothes, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his strong features and masculine torso. I sought to become the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to femininity when I chose to get married. My spouse transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull revisiting the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the museum, anticipating that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I didn't know exactly what I was searching for when I walked into the exhibition - possibly I anticipated 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 positioned before a compact monitor where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had seen personally, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; conversely they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were hoping for it all to conclude. At the moment when I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I desired to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I wanted his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. However I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as queer was a different challenge, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting outlook.

I needed further time before I was willing. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and began donning masculine outfits.

I sat differently, walked differently, and changed my name and pronouns, but I halted before medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a engagement in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. 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 challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I could.

I booked myself in to see a physician not long after. I needed additional years before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I feared came true.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.