I Thought That I Identified As a Homosexual Woman - David Bowie Helped Me Uncover the Actual Situation

In 2011, a few years prior to the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had only been with men, including one I had married. Two years later, I found myself approaching middle age, a newly single parent to four children, residing in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my sense of self and attraction preferences, searching for clarity.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - prior to digital connectivity. As teenagers, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or digital content to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; rather, we looked to music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer adopted feminine outfits, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were publicly out.

I craved his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and flat chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I lived riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I chose to get married. My partner moved our family to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull returning to the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip returning to England at the museum, hoping that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was seeking when I stepped inside the exhibition - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a hint about my personal self.

Before long I was standing in front of a modest display where the visual presentation for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the performers I had seen personally, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I wanted to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I desired his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his male chest; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as queer was one thing, but personal transformation was a much more frightening outlook.

It took me several more years before I was prepared. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and started wearing male attire.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I halted before surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a presentation in New York City, five years later, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the same video in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I made arrangements to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I worried about materialized.

I continue to possess many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I sought the ability to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.