I Believed Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Realize the Truth

Back in 2011, a couple of years prior to the acclaimed David Bowie show launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Previously, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had wed. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single parent to four children, living in the America.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my gender identity and attraction preferences, looking to find understanding.

My birthplace was England during the dawn of the seventies era - pre-world wide web. When we were young, my peers and I lacked access to social platforms or digital content to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we sought guidance from music icons, and during the 80s, everyone was playing with gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer wore masculine attire, Boy George embraced women's fashion, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured artists who were proudly homosexual.

I wanted his narrow hips and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and flat chest. I sought to become the artist's German phase

During the nineties, I lived driving a bike and dressing like a tomboy, but I reverted back to femininity when I chose to get married. My spouse transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one challenged norms quite like David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey back to the UK at the V&A, with the expectation that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I didn't know specifically what I was looking for when I entered the exhibition - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, in turn, encounter a insight into my true nature.

Before long I was standing in front of a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "that track" was playing on repeat. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while off to one side three backing singers wearing women's clothing clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had encountered in real life, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the confidence of born divas; conversely they looked unenthused and frustrated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, appearing ignorant to their reduced excitement. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their heavy makeup, uncomfortable wigs and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as uncomfortable as I did in female clothing - irritated and impatient, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. At the moment when I realized I was identifying with three men dressed in drag, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Revelation. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I knew for certain that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I desired his lean physique and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I aimed to personify the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a much more frightening outlook.

I needed several more years before I was willing. During that period, I did my best to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my feminine garments, shortened my locks and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and regret had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

Once the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be something I was not.

Standing in front of the familiar clip in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my body. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially all his life. I desired to change into the man in the sharp suit, moving in the illumination, and then I comprehended that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor not long after. It took additional years before my transition was complete, 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 like Bowie did - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I can.