I Believed I Was a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Discover the Truth

In 2011, a few years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie show launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a homosexual woman. Until that moment, I had solely pursued relationships with men, with one partner I had married. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated mother of four, living in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had started questioning both my sense of self and sexual orientation, seeking out understanding.

I entered the world in England during the beginning of the seventies - before the internet. During our youth, my peers and I lacked access to social platforms or YouTube to consult when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we looked to music icons, and throughout the eighties, artists were playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman embraced girls' clothes, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured members who were publicly out.

I wanted his lean physique and defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and flat chest. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I lived operating a motorcycle and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to conventional female presentation when I opted for marriage. My spouse relocated us to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Given that no one played with gender as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a summer trip back to the UK at the V&A, hoping that possibly he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the show - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, as a result, encounter a clue to my true nature.

I soon found myself facing a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was moving with assurance in the front, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while off to one side three accompanying performers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the poise of born divas; instead they looked bored and annoyed. Positioned as supporting acts, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie performed brightly, seemingly unaware to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as awkward as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were hoping for it all to be over. Precisely when I understood I connected with three individuals presenting as female, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and unveiled herself as ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were additional David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I became completely convinced that I desired to rip it all off and become Bowie too. I craved his narrow hips and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Coming out as queer was one thing, but transitioning was a much more frightening prospect.

It took me several more years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my skirts and dresses, cut off my hair and started wearing male attire.

I sat differently, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the chance of refusal and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

When the David Bowie display concluded its international run with a stint in the American metropolis, five years later, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a feminine man who'd been in costume since birth. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor soon after. The process required additional years before my transformation concluded, but none of the fears I worried about occurred.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to experiment with identity as Bowie had - and since I'm content with my physical form, I can.