I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Music Icon Helped Me Discover the Reality

Back in 2011, a couple of years before the acclaimed David Bowie show debuted at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I came out as a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had solely pursued relationships with men, including one I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single mother of four, residing in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my gender identity and sexual orientation, looking to find clarity.

Born in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. As teenagers, my companions and myself were without Reddit or video sharing sites to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we sought guidance from music icons, and in that decade, musicians were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox donned boys' clothes, The Culture Club frontman adopted girls' clothes, and musical acts such as popular ensembles featured performers who were publicly out.

I desired his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My partner relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw back towards the male identity I had once given up.

Given that no one experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip back to the UK at the V&A, hoping that possibly he could provide clarity.

I didn't know exactly what I was searching for when I walked into the display - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my true nature.

I soon found myself positioned before a small television screen where the music video for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking polished in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag gathered around a microphone.

In contrast to the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these characters weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a brief sensation of connection for the supporting artists, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of 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 male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Naturally, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I aimed to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I desired his narrow hips and his precise cut, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, Berlin-era Bowie. However I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a different challenge, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting possibility.

It took me several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to embrace manhood: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and started wearing masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in the American metropolis, following that period, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be something I was not.

Facing the familiar clip in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag since birth. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, performing under lights, and now I realized that I could.

I booked myself in to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I anticipated materialized.

I maintain many of my feminine mannerisms, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I wanted the freedom to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.