I Was Convinced I Was a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Helped Me Discover the Truth

During 2011, a few years before the celebrated David Bowie show debuted at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I declared myself a gay woman. Up to that point, I had only been with men, one of whom I had entered matrimony with. Two years later, I found myself nearing forty-five, a freshly divorced parent to four children, living in the United States.

During this period, I had started questioning both my sense of self and attraction preferences, seeking out clarity.

I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I didn't have online forums or video sharing sites to reference when we had curiosities about intimacy; rather, we turned toward pop stars, and throughout the eighties, everyone was playing with gender norms.

Annie Lennox sported masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman wore women's fashion, and bands such as well-known groups featured performers who were publicly out.

I wanted his lean physique and sharp haircut, his defined jawline and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase

In that decade, I lived operating a motorcycle and adopting masculine styles, but I returned to femininity when I opted for marriage. My partner moved our family to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw back towards the masculinity I had previously abandoned.

Since nobody challenged norms to the extent of David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the V&A, anticipating that perhaps he could help me figure it out.

I was uncertain precisely what I was seeking when I stepped inside the exhibition - maybe I thought that by losing myself in the extravagance of Bowie's identity exploration, I might, as a result, stumble across a hint about my personal self.

Quickly I discovered myself positioned before a small television screen where the visual presentation for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the front, looking polished in a charcoal outfit, while to the side three accompanying performers wearing women's clothing gathered around a microphone.

In contrast to the entertainers I had encountered in real life, these characters didn't glide around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; conversely they looked disinterested and irritated. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and expressed annoyance at the boredom of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, apparently oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of connection for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and too-tight dresses.

They appeared to feel as uncomfortable as I did in women's clothes - annoyed and restless, as if they were longing for it all to be over. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three male performers in feminine attire, one of them tore off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Understandably, there were two other David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I was absolutely sure that I aimed to remove everything and transform like Bowie. I craved his slender frame and his defined hairstyle, his angular jaw and his masculine torso; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. However I couldn't, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would need to be a man.

Announcing my identity as homosexual was a separate matter, but gender transition was a considerably more daunting prospect.

It took me additional years before I was ready. During that period, I tried my hardest to adopt male characteristics: I stopped wearing makeup and threw away all my women's clothing, shortened my locks and commenced using male attire.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I halted before surgical procedures - the possibility of rejection and regret had rendered me immobile with anxiety.

Once the David Bowie exhibition completed its global journey with a presentation in New York City, after half a decade, I returned. I had reached a breaking point. I was unable to continue acting to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the challenge didn't involve my attire, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been presenting artificially since birth. I desired to change into the person in the polished attire, dancing in the spotlight, and now I realized that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a physician shortly afterwards. The process required another few years before my personal journey finished, but not a single concern I anticipated materialized.

I still have many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a queer man, but I accept this. I wanted the freedom to explore expression following Bowie's example - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I can.