I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Lesbian - David Bowie Enabled Me to Uncover the Truth

In 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie display opened at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a lesbian. Up to that point, I had only been with men, with one partner I had wed. By 2013, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, seeking out clarity.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I lacked access to social platforms or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; rather, we sought guidance from music icons, and throughout the eighties, musicians were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned masculine attire, Boy George embraced women's fashion, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I wanted to embody the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I lived operating a motorcycle and dressing like a tomboy, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an powerful draw returning to the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I opted to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit returning to England at the gallery, with the expectation that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain precisely what I was searching for when I entered the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by submerging my consciousness in the extravagance of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, in turn, encounter a insight into my personal self.

Before long I was facing a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three backing singers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the poise of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of connection for the accompanying performers, with their pronounced make-up, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three men dressed in drag, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I craved his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as queer was one thing, but transitioning was a significantly scarier possibility.

It took me additional years before I was willing. In the meantime, I did my best to embrace manhood: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, five years later, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I wasn't simply a tomboy; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I scheduled an appointment to see a physician shortly afterwards. I needed another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I anticipated occurred.

I maintain many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a homosexual male, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to explore expression as Bowie had - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.