I Thought That I Identified As a Lesbian - The Music Icon Enabled Me to Uncover the Truth

In 2011, a few years prior to the renowned David Bowie display opened at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a homosexual woman. Up to that point, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself nearing forty-five, a newly single mother of four, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for understanding.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. As teenagers, my peers and I were without online forums or YouTube to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; instead, we looked to music icons, and during the 80s, artists were playing with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist donned masculine attire, Boy George wore feminine outfits, and pop groups such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were openly gay.

I craved his lean physique and sharp haircut, his strong features and masculine torso. I sought to become the Berlin-era Bowie

Throughout the 90s, I lived driving a bike and adopting masculine styles, but I reverted back to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an undeniable attraction returning to the manhood I had once given up.

Given that no one experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I decided to devote an open day during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the gallery, hoping that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I was uncertain specifically what I was looking for when I walked into the show - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, in turn, stumble across a clue to my personal self.

I soon found myself positioned before a compact monitor where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was performing confidently in the primary position, looking polished in a dark grey suit, while to the side three supporting vocalists in feminine attire clustered near a microphone.

Differing from the drag queens I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of natural performers; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Positioned as supporting acts, they were chewing and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of understanding for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They gave the impression of as awkward as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three men dressed in drag, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

Right then, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I craved his slender frame and his sharp haircut, his strong features and his male chest; I wanted to embody the slender-shaped, Bowie's German period. And yet I found myself incapable, because to truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Coming out as queer was one thing, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting possibility.

It took me further time before I was willing. Meanwhile, I did my best to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my skirts and dresses, trimmed my tresses and started wearing masculine outfits.

I sat differently, modified my gait, and adopted new identifiers, but I halted before medical intervention - the possibility of rejection and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie exhibition finished its world tour with a stint in Brooklyn, New York, five years later, I revisited. I had arrived at a crisis. I found it impossible to maintain the facade to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I became completely convinced that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag since birth. I aimed to transition into the man in the sharp suit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I booked myself in to see a doctor soon after. It took further time before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I feared materialized.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I sought the ability to play with gender following Bowie's example - and given that I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.