I Thought Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Discover the Truth

During 2011, a couple of years before the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I declared myself a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had married. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single parent to four children, making my home in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and romantic inclinations, searching for clarity.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my friends and I didn't have social platforms or video sharing sites to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from pop stars, and throughout the eighties, everyone was playing with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist wore male clothing, Boy George adopted women's fashion, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured artists who were publicly out.

I wanted his slender frame and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I sought to become the artist's German phase

In that decade, I passed my days riding a motorbike 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 the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw revisiting the manhood I had once given up.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip visiting Britain at the V&A, with the expectation that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was searching for when I stepped inside the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, discover a clue to my true nature.

Before long I was positioned before a modest display where the visual presentation for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three backing singers dressed in drag gathered around a microphone.

In contrast to the drag queens I had seen personally, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of born divas; instead they looked unenthused and frustrated. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. Just as I understood I connected with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I desired to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I desired his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his masculine torso; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I found myself incapable, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a different challenge, but gender transition was a much more frightening possibility.

I required further time before I was willing. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and commenced using masculine outfits.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie display completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I could.

I booked myself in to see a physician soon after. It took additional years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I feared materialized.

I maintain many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I sought the ability to play with gender following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.