I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Uncover the Actual Situation

Back in 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie display launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had married. 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 personal gender and romantic inclinations, looking to find answers.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my friends and I were without Reddit or video sharing sites to turn to when we had questions about sex; conversely, we turned toward celebrity musicians, and in that decade, artists were challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist donned masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman adopted women's fashion, and bands such as well-known groups featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and male chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I spent my time riding a motorbike and dressing like a tomboy, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My partner transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an irresistible pull back towards the male identity I had once given up.

Given that no one experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the gallery, anticipating that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I didn't know exactly what I was searching for when I entered the show - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, discover a clue to my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a modest display where the film clip for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had encountered in real life, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the confidence of inherent stars; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they had gum in their mouths and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to end. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I desired his narrow hips and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Announcing my identity as queer was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I needed additional years before I was ready. During that period, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and eliminated all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before medical intervention - the potential for denial and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a stint in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the same video in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the problem didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

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

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to play with gender as Bowie had - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.