I Believed I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Realize the Reality

During 2011, a few years before the renowned David Bowie show opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single caregiver to four kids, residing in the United States.

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

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. When we were young, my companions and myself didn't have online forums or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to music icons, and in that decade, musicians were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned masculine attire, The flamboyant singer wore women's fashion, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were openly gay.

I wanted his slender frame and precise cut, his angular jaw and male chest. I wanted to embody the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, 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 spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction back towards the manhood I had once given up.

Since nobody played with gender quite like David Bowie, I opted to devote an open day during a seasonal visit returning to England at the V&A, anticipating that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was looking for when I stepped inside the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a insight into my true nature.

Before long I was facing a modest display where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the monotony of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I aimed to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I desired his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. Nevertheless I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as gay was a separate matter, but transitioning was a much more frightening prospect.

I required additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and began donning male attire.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of hormonal treatment - the potential for denial and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie exhibition concluded its international run with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the things I feared materialized.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to explore expression following Bowie's example - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.