I Believed Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Realize the Actual Situation

During 2011, a few years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I came out as a lesbian. 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 recently separated caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my sense of self and attraction preferences, looking to find understanding.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my friends and I were without social platforms or video sharing sites to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to celebrity musicians, and during the 80s, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman wore feminine outfits, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his strong features and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I spent my time driving a bike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My partner moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the manhood I had once given up.

Since nobody played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a summer trip visiting Britain at the V&A, with the expectation that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain exactly what I was searching for when I stepped inside the show - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, discover a insight into my own identity.

Before long I was positioned before a small television screen where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking sharp in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of natural performers; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. Precisely when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I desired to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I craved his narrow hips and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as homosexual was a different challenge, but transitioning was a much more frightening outlook.

I needed several more years before I was prepared. In the meantime, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning men's clothes.

I sat differently, walked differently, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When 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 was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Facing the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume since birth. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and now I realized that I was able to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician not long after. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but not a single concern I worried about materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.