I Thought Myself to Be a Gay Woman - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

During 2011, several years before the renowned David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Up to that point, I had only been with men, including one I had entered matrimony with. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, making my home in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my sense of self and sexual orientation, looking to find answers.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I didn't have social platforms or digital content to reference when we had questions about sex; conversely, we turned toward music icons, and in that decade, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned masculine attire, The flamboyant singer adopted women's fashion, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured artists who were openly gay.

I desired his lean physique and precise cut, his strong features and flat chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I passed my days operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip returning to England at the gallery, anticipating that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I didn't know precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the show - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my own identity.

I soon found myself facing a compact monitor where the visual presentation 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 dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of born divas; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were hoping for it all to be over. Precisely when I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I craved his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. However I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a separate matter, but gender transition was a significantly scarier prospect.

I required further time before I was prepared. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and started wearing male attire.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, performing under lights, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a medical professional soon after. It took additional years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I anticipated materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and since I'm at peace with myself, I can.