I Thought I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Realize the Reality

Back in 2011, a couple of years ahead of the renowned David Bowie exhibition debuted at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a lesbian. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had married. By 2013, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced parent to four children, residing in the US.

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

I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my companions and myself were without social platforms or digital content to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and during the 80s, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned male clothing, The Culture Club frontman wore girls' clothes, and musical acts such as popular ensembles featured performers who were publicly out.

I desired his narrow hips and precise cut, his defined jawline and male chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I returned to femininity when I chose to get married. My spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an irresistible pull returning to the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the gallery, hoping that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

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 opulence of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, encounter a hint about my own identity.

Before long I was facing a small television screen 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 positioned laterally three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I aimed to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I wanted his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I sought to become the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as queer was one thing, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting prospect.

It took me several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and started wearing men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue 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 throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor soon after. It took further time before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I worried about came true.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to explore expression like Bowie did - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.