I Thought That I Identified As a Gay Woman - David Bowie Helped Me Realize the Actual Situation

During 2011, several years ahead of the renowned David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had entered matrimony with. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, making my home in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my gender identity and attraction preferences, looking to find answers.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. As teenagers, my friends and I were without social platforms or video sharing sites to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; rather, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer wore masculine attire, The flamboyant singer wore feminine outfits, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I craved his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I passed my days driving a bike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to femininity when I decided to wed. My spouse moved our family to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw revisiting the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the gallery, with the expectation that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for when I walked into the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a hint about my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a modest display where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the supporting artists, with their pronounced make-up, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I became completely convinced that I desired to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I wanted his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as homosexual was a separate matter, but transitioning was a significantly scarier prospect.

It took me further time before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and began donning men's clothes.

I sat differently, walked differently, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a engagement in the American metropolis, five years later, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. I needed additional years before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I feared materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.