I Was Convinced That I Identified As a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Realize the Truth

In 2011, a few years prior to the celebrated David Bowie exhibition launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I declared myself a gay woman. Until that moment, I had only been with men, including one I had married. Two years later, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single parent to four children, making my home in the United States.

During this period, I had started questioning both my sense of self and attraction preferences, looking to find clarity.

My birthplace was England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. When we were young, my friends and I lacked access to social platforms or digital content to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to celebrity musicians, and in that decade, musicians were playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer wore masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman adopted feminine outfits, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured members who were publicly out.

I desired his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his strong features and male chest. I wanted to embody the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I lived driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I chose to get married. My husband transferred our home to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the male identity I had earlier relinquished.

Considering that no artist challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I chose to spend a free afternoon during a seasonal visit returning to England at the gallery, with the expectation that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was seeking when I entered the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, consequently, encounter a insight into my own identity.

Before long I was positioned before a small television screen where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking polished in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers dressed in drag crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had seen personally, these ladies didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of natural performers; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they were chewing and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"Those words, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of connection for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were longing for it all to end. Precisely when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them ripped off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to remove everything and emulate the artist. I wanted his narrow hips and his defined hairstyle, his defined jawline and his flat chest; I sought to become the slim-silhouetted, Bowie's German period. However I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as queer was one thing, but gender transition was a much more frightening possibility.

It took me additional years before I was prepared. During that period, I did my best to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and changed my name and pronouns, but I halted before surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I revisited. I had experienced a turning point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Facing the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a man with gentle characteristics who'd been wearing drag since birth. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I worried about occurred.

I still have many of my feminine mannerisms, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a homosexual male, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and since I'm at peace with myself, I can.