I Believed That I Identified As a Gay Woman - David Bowie Enabled Me to Realize the Actual Situation

During 2011, several years ahead of the renowned David Bowie exhibition debuted at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I came out as a gay woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had wed. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my gender identity and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

Born in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. As teenagers, my peers and I didn't have Reddit or digital content to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we sought guidance from music icons, and during the 80s, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned male clothing, The flamboyant singer wore women's fashion, and bands such as well-known groups featured members who were openly gay.

I craved his lean physique and precise cut, his angular jaw and male chest. I sought to become the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I lived operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My partner relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw returning to the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody experimented with identity to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a summer trip back to the UK at the V&A, hoping that perhaps he could guide my understanding.

I was uncertain specifically what I was searching for when I entered the show - maybe I thought that by immersing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, encounter a hint about my personal self.

Before long I was standing in front of a modest display where the film clip for "that track" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the foreground, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three supporting vocalists dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Unlike the performers I had encountered in real life, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; rather they looked unenthused and frustrated. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping 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 revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I desired to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I desired his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, Bowie's German period. However I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as homosexual was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a considerably more daunting possibility.

I needed additional years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I did my best to adopt male characteristics: I abandoned beauty products and discarded all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and began donning male attire.

I altered how I sat, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at medical intervention - the potential for denial and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a presentation in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I went back. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a medical professional soon after. It took further time before my transition was complete, but none of the fears I worried about came true.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.