I Believed I Was a Lesbian - David Bowie Made Me Discover the Truth

During 2011, a few years ahead of the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had entered matrimony with. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced caregiver to four kids, living in the US.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for clarity.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. As teenagers, my companions and myself were without online forums or YouTube to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from music icons, and throughout the eighties, everyone was playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported male clothing, Boy George embraced girls' clothes, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

Throughout the 90s, I lived driving a bike and dressing like a tomboy, but I went back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My partner relocated us to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the male identity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to devote an open day during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the gallery, hoping that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was seeking when I entered the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by immersing myself in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, stumble across a insight into my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a modest display where the music video for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while positioned laterally three backing singers dressed in drag gathered around a microphone.

In contrast to the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies weren't sashaying around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; rather they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of empathy for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in female clothing - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. Just as I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to remove everything and emulate the artist. I desired his narrow hips and his precise cut, his strong features and his flat chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, artist's Berlin phase. Nevertheless I couldn't, because to truly become Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as queer was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a much more frightening prospect.

I required several more years before I was willing. In the meantime, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and started wearing male attire.

I sat differently, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I halted before surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a engagement in the American metropolis, after half a decade, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Positioned before the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue didn't involve my attire, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and then I comprehended that I could.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. It took another few years before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I feared came true.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.