I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Uncover the Truth

During 2011, several years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie display opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I declared myself a lesbian. Up to that point, I had only been with men, with one partner I had married. By 2013, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single mother of four, living in the America.

During this period, I had started questioning both my personal gender and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

Born in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. As teenagers, my friends and I lacked access to online forums or YouTube to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, everyone was challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore male clothing, Boy George wore feminine outfits, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

I desired his slender frame and precise cut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I sought to become the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I passed my days driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My spouse transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit returning to England at the V&A, hoping that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I lacked clarity exactly what I was looking for when I stepped inside the exhibition - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, stumble across a clue to my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a small television screen where the music video for "that track" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was moving with assurance in the primary position, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the supporting artists, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and restrictive outfits.

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 recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I was absolutely sure that I desired to rip it all off and transform like Bowie. I desired his lean physique and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as gay was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier outlook.

It took me several more years before I was willing. During that period, I made every effort to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and began donning men's clothes.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and changed my name and pronouns, but I stopped short of surgical procedures - the potential for denial and remorse had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

After the David Bowie display completed its global journey with a engagement in the American metropolis, five years later, I returned. I had experienced a turning point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, dancing in the spotlight, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a medical professional not long after. It took further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I anticipated materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a homosexual male, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I am able to.