I Was Convinced Myself to Be a Lesbian - The Legendary Artist Made Me Uncover the Truth

During 2011, a couple of years before the renowned David Bowie display launched at the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK capital, I publicly announced a gay woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, with one partner I had wed. Two years later, I found myself approaching middle age, a recently separated caregiver to four kids, living in the America.

During this period, I had begun to doubt both my personal gender and sexual orientation, searching for clarity.

Born in England during the beginning of the seventies - pre-world wide web. As teenagers, my friends and I lacked access to Reddit or YouTube to reference when we had questions about sex; rather, we sought guidance from music icons, and during the 80s, everyone was challenging gender norms.

The iconic vocalist wore boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer embraced feminine outfits, and pop groups such as well-known groups featured performers who were openly gay.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his angular jaw and flat chest. I sought to become the Bowie's Berlin period

During the nineties, I spent my time riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I opted for marriage. My spouse relocated us to the America in 2007, but when our relationship dissolved I felt an powerful draw returning to the manhood I had previously abandoned.

Given that no one challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I decided to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey returning to England at the V&A, with the expectation that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I didn't know exactly what I was looking for when I walked into the exhibition - possibly I anticipated that by losing myself in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, consequently, stumble across a hint about my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a compact monitor where the film clip for "Boys Keep Swinging" was continuously looping. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the primary position, looking sharp in a charcoal outfit, while positioned laterally three backing singers wearing women's clothing crowded round a microphone.

In contrast to the performers I had seen personally, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the backing singers, with their pronounced make-up, uncomfortable wigs and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in feminine attire - annoyed and restless, as if they were yearning for it all to end. At the moment when I understood I connected with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

In that instant, I became completely convinced that I desired to shed all constraints and transform like Bowie. I desired his lean physique and his defined hairstyle, his strong features and his flat chest; I wanted to embody the lean-figured, Berlin-era Bowie. And yet I was unable to, because to truly become Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Coming out as queer was a different challenge, but transitioning was a considerably more daunting possibility.

It took me several more years before I was ready. In the meantime, I did my best to embrace manhood: I abandoned beauty products and eliminated all my women's clothing, cut off my hair and began donning masculine outfits.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I paused at hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and remorse had caused me to freeze with apprehension.

When the David Bowie show finished its world tour with a stint in the American metropolis, following that period, 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 same video in 2018, I was absolutely sure that the challenge wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially throughout his existence. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I had the capacity to.

I scheduled an appointment to see a medical professional shortly afterwards. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I worried about materialized.

I continue to possess many of my female characteristics, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to play with gender like Bowie did - and now that I'm at peace with myself, I have that capacity.