I Believed I Was a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Made Me Discover the Truth

In 2011, a few years before the renowned David Bowie display debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a gay woman. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single caregiver to four kids, making my home in the United States.

At that time, I had started questioning both my gender identity and attraction preferences, searching for answers.

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my peers and I were without social platforms or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer sported masculine attire, The flamboyant singer adopted girls' clothes, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were proudly homosexual.

I craved his slender frame and defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and male chest. I wanted to embody the Berlin-era Bowie

In that decade, I spent my time riding a motorbike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My partner transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw back towards the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to devote an open day during a seasonal visit returning to England at the gallery, with the expectation that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain specifically what I was looking for when I entered the exhibition - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, consequently, encounter a hint about my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had seen personally, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of empathy 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 yearning for it all to end. Just as I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I was absolutely sure that I desired to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I desired his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his male chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was one thing, but gender transition was a significantly scarier prospect.

It took me several more years before I was ready. During that period, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and began donning male attire.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of medical intervention - the potential for denial and second thoughts had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the challenge wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been in costume since birth. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about materialized.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a queer man, but I accept this. I sought the ability to play with gender as Bowie had - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.