I Believed I Was a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Made Me Realize the Truth

In 2011, several years ahead of the acclaimed David Bowie display opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, making my home in the America.

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

Born in England during the early 1970s - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my companions and myself didn't have Reddit or YouTube to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, artists were challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman wore feminine outfits, and musical acts such as popular ensembles featured performers who were publicly out.

I wanted his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My partner transferred our home to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had once given up.

Considering that no artist challenged norms as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip back to the UK at the gallery, anticipating that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was looking for when I entered the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, 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 strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of born divas; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience 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 individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I wanted to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I desired his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, Berlin-era Bowie. However I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was one thing, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting outlook.

It took me several more years before I was ready. In the meantime, I made every effort to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and commenced using male attire.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I halted before medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had left me paralysed with fear.

Once the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a presentation in New York City, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. 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 was absolutely sure that the challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor soon after. The process required additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I anticipated materialized.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and since I'm at peace with myself, I can.