I Believed Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Helped Me Uncover the Truth

During 2011, a couple of years before the celebrated David Bowie show opened at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I publicly announced a lesbian. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated parent to four children, residing in the America.

At that time, I had started questioning both my sense of self and romantic inclinations, searching for understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - prior to digital connectivity. During our youth, my peers and I lacked access to Reddit or YouTube to turn to when we had inquiries regarding sexuality; instead, we sought guidance from celebrity musicians, and throughout the eighties, artists were challenging gender norms.

The Eurythmics singer donned male clothing, Boy George adopted girls' clothes, and musical acts such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were proudly homosexual.

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

In that decade, I lived driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I returned to traditional womanhood when I decided to wed. My spouse transferred our home to the United States in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw back towards the male identity I had once given up.

Since nobody experimented with identity quite like David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a summer trip visiting Britain at the V&A, anticipating that perhaps he could provide clarity.

I lacked clarity specifically what I was looking for when I walked into the display - maybe I thought that by submerging my consciousness in the richness of Bowie's norm-challenging expression, I might, consequently, encounter a hint about my own identity.

Before long I was positioned before a modest display where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three backing singers dressed in drag clustered near a microphone.

Unlike the entertainers I had witnessed firsthand, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the confidence of inherent stars; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the monotony of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their reduced excitement. I felt a brief sensation of understanding for the supporting artists, with their pronounced make-up, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They seemed to experience as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were longing for it all to conclude. At the moment when I recognized my alignment with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, wiped the makeup from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Revelation. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I knew for certain that I desired to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I desired his slender frame and his precise cut, his strong features and his masculine torso; I wanted to embody the slim-silhouetted, artist's Berlin phase. And yet I found myself incapable, because to authentically transform into Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was a different challenge, but personal transformation was a much more frightening possibility.

I required several more years before I was willing. During that period, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and began donning men's clothes.

I altered how I sat, walked differently, and modified my personal references, but I paused at surgical procedures - the chance of refusal and second thoughts had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

After the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a stint in the American metropolis, following that period, I returned. I had arrived at a crisis. I couldn't go on pretending to be a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the same video in 2018, I knew for certain 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 in costume throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the individual in the stylish outfit, performing under lights, and at that moment I understood that I could.

I made arrangements to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I anticipated occurred.

I continue to possess many of my traditional womanly traits, so individuals frequently misidentify me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity following Bowie's example - and given that I'm comfortable in my body, I have that capacity.