I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Uncover the Reality

During 2011, a couple of years before the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a gay woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself approaching middle age, a newly single parent to four children, residing in the United States.

At that time, I had commenced examining both my personal gender and romantic inclinations, searching for understanding.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or digital content to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we sought guidance from music icons, and in that decade, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer wore masculine attire, The flamboyant singer embraced feminine outfits, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I desired his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his strong features and masculine torso. I wanted to embody the Bowie's Berlin period

Throughout the 90s, I passed my days riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My spouse moved our family to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw returning to the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to devote an open day during a seasonal visit returning to England at the gallery, anticipating that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was searching for when I entered the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, in turn, stumble across a clue to my personal self.

I soon found myself facing a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to end. Just as I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I craved his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his flat chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me further time before I was willing. In the meantime, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I abandoned beauty products and threw away all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and began donning men's clothes.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, after half a decade, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been in costume throughout his existence. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor not long after. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I anticipated occurred.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.