I Thought I Was a Homosexual Woman - David Bowie Made Me Discover the Actual Situation

During 2011, a couple of years before the celebrated David Bowie exhibition debuted at the famous 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. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single parent to four children, living in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my gender identity and romantic inclinations, seeking out answers.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my friends and I were without online forums or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we sought guidance from pop stars, and during the 80s, musicians were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported boys' clothes, Boy George embraced women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I passed my days riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had once given up.

Considering that no artist challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a summer trip back to the UK at the V&A, with the expectation that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was seeking when I stepped inside the display - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, encounter a clue to my true nature.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three accompanying performers dressed in drag gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had seen personally, these characters failed to move around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Precisely 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! Revelation. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I wanted his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as homosexual was one thing, but personal transformation was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me further time before I was ready. Meanwhile, I made every effort to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and commenced using men's clothes.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the chance of refusal and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in the American metropolis, following that period, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been in costume since birth. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and now I realized that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. I needed further time before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I feared occurred.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.