I Believed That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Uncover the Truth

During 2011, several years prior to the renowned David Bowie display debuted at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I declared myself a lesbian. Until that moment, I had only been with men, with one partner I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated 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 clarity.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I lacked access to Reddit or digital content to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from pop stars, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned male clothing, Boy George wore women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his slender frame and precise cut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I wanted to embody the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My partner moved our family to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw returning to the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Considering that no artist played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a summer trip returning to England at the museum, anticipating that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I didn't know precisely what I was seeking when I stepped inside the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a insight into my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a small television screen where the film clip for "the iconic song" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the primary position, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while off to one side three backing singers wearing women's clothing crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had seen personally, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the poise of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to end. Just as I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I wanted to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I craved his lean physique and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his flat chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. However I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as queer was a different challenge, but transitioning was a significantly scarier prospect.

I needed several more years before I was prepared. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and discarded all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning masculine outfits.

I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at medical intervention - the potential for denial and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in the American metropolis, five years later, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the same video in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume since birth. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and then I comprehended that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a physician not long after. I needed further time before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about occurred.

I maintain many of my feminine mannerisms, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to play with gender following Bowie's example - and now that I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.