I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Gay Woman - David Bowie Made Me Realize the Actual Situation

During 2011, several years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated mother of four, living in the US.

During this period, I had started questioning both my gender identity and romantic inclinations, looking to find clarity.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have social platforms or digital content to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we turned toward music icons, and during the 80s, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported masculine attire, Boy George embraced girls' clothes, and pop groups such as popular ensembles featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I desired his lean physique and sharp haircut, his strong features and male chest. I sought to become the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I lived riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My husband relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw revisiting the male identity I had once given up.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the V&A, with the expectation that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was seeking when I walked into the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, consequently, discover a insight into my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a compact monitor where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking sharp in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and rolled their eyes 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 empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - irritated and impatient, as if they were hoping for it all to be over. Just as I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to remove everything and emulate the artist. I desired his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. However I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Declaring myself as queer was one thing, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting outlook.

I required additional years before I was ready. During that period, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and started wearing male attire.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of medical intervention - the chance of refusal and regret had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about occurred.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I am able to.