I Thought That I Identified As a Lesbian - David Bowie Enabled Me to Discover the Reality

In 2011, a few years before the celebrated David Bowie exhibition opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, one of whom I had married. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a recently separated parent to four children, making my home in the US.

At that time, I had begun to doubt both my gender identity and attraction preferences, seeking out answers.

Born in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. 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 looked to music icons, and throughout the eighties, musicians were challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman embraced girls' clothes, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his defined jawline and male chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

In that decade, I passed my days driving a bike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to femininity when I opted for marriage. My partner relocated us to the US in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the V&A, hoping that maybe he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain exactly what I was seeking when I walked into the exhibition - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my personal self.

I soon found myself facing a compact monitor where the music video for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the foreground, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three backing singers wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

In contrast to the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of born divas; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Just as I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I desired to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I wanted his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was a separate matter, but gender transition was a significantly scarier possibility.

It took me further time before I was ready. During that period, I tried my hardest to become more masculine: I abandoned beauty products and threw away all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and began donning men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie display completed its global journey with a stint in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag all his life. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a medical professional not long after. It took additional years before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I feared materialized.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.