I Was Convinced I Was a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Made Me Realize the Actual Situation

In 2011, a few years before the celebrated David Bowie exhibition debuted at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a newly single caregiver to four kids, living in the United States.

At that time, I had begun to doubt both my gender identity and sexual orientation, looking to find clarity.

My birthplace was England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. During our youth, my friends and I didn't have social platforms or YouTube to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to pop stars, and in that decade, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported male clothing, Boy George wore feminine outfits, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his strong features and flat chest. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I lived riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw revisiting the manhood I had earlier relinquished.

Since nobody challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I decided to devote an open day during a summer trip back to the UK at the museum, with the expectation that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity precisely what I was seeking when I stepped inside the show - possibly I anticipated that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a clue to my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a modest display where the film clip for "that track" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

Differing from the entertainers I had seen personally, these female-presenting individuals failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their diminished energy. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. Just as I recognized my alignment with three individuals presenting as female, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to shed all constraints and emulate the artist. I wanted his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as queer was one thing, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting outlook.

I required additional years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning men's clothes.

I changed my seating posture, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of medical intervention - the chance of refusal and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie display finished its world tour with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I went back. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag all his life. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I could.

I booked myself in to see a physician not long after. I needed further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I feared came true.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to play with gender following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.