I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Uncover the Reality

During 2011, a couple of years prior to the celebrated David Bowie show debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated mother of four, living in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my sense of self and attraction preferences, looking to find clarity.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I lacked access to online forums or digital content to reference when we had questions about sex; rather, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and in that decade, artists were experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, Boy George embraced girls' clothes, and bands such as popular ensembles featured artists who were openly gay.

I wanted his slender frame and precise cut, his defined jawline and flat chest. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to femininity when I chose to get married. My partner relocated us to the US in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an irresistible pull returning to the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the museum, with the expectation that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I didn't know specifically what I was looking for when I walked into the display - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a insight into my true nature.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a compact monitor where the film clip for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three supporting vocalists in feminine attire clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the poise of natural performers; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum 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 supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as ill-at-ease as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. Just as I recognized my alignment with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I aimed to rip it all off and emulate the artist. I craved his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his male chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was one thing, but transitioning was a significantly scarier prospect.

It took me further time before I was prepared. In the meantime, I did my best to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my feminine garments, trimmed my tresses and commenced using male attire.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

Once the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I went back. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a medical professional not long after. It took another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the fears I anticipated occurred.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.