I Thought Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Music Icon Made Me Realize the Truth

In 2011, a couple of years before the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had married. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single mother of four, making my home in the United States.

During this period, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, looking to find clarity.

My birthplace was England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I didn't have online forums or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and during the 80s, artists were challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported masculine attire, The flamboyant singer adopted girls' clothes, and bands such as popular ensembles featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and sharp haircut, his defined jawline and male chest. I aimed to personify the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I passed my days riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My partner transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an irresistible pull back towards the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the museum, hoping that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain specifically what I was looking for when I entered the show - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, encounter a insight into my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had seen personally, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the poise of born divas; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to be over. Just as I understood I connected 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. (Naturally, there were additional 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 narrow hips and his precise cut, 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.

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

It took me several more years before I was ready. During that period, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at surgical procedures - the potential for denial and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a stint in the American metropolis, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Standing in front of the same video in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume since birth. I wanted to transform myself into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. The process required additional years before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I feared came true.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I sought the ability to explore expression as Bowie had - and since I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.