I Believed I Was a Gay Woman - The Music Icon Made Me Realize the Reality

Back in 2011, a few years before the renowned David Bowie show launched at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a lesbian. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a freshly divorced mother of four, residing in the US.

Throughout this phase, I had commenced examining both my gender identity and sexual orientation, searching for understanding.

I entered the world in England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I were without online forums or digital content to reference when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to pop stars, and in that decade, musicians were challenging gender norms.

Annie Lennox wore boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer wore women's fashion, and bands such as Erasure and Bronski Beat featured performers who were publicly out.

I desired his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his strong features and male chest. I wanted to embody the artist's German phase

Throughout the 90s, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to femininity when I opted for marriage. My husband transferred our home to the America in 2007, but when the marriage ended I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the masculinity I had once given up.

Since nobody experimented with identity as dramatically as David Bowie, I chose to use some leisure time during a seasonal visit back to the UK at the V&A, anticipating that maybe he could provide clarity.

I didn't know precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the show - possibly I anticipated that by submerging my consciousness in the opulence of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, stumble across a insight into my true nature.

Before long I was positioned before a modest display where the music video for "the iconic song" was continuously looping. Bowie was performing confidently in the front, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while positioned laterally three supporting vocalists dressed in drag gathered around a microphone.

Unlike the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these female-presenting individuals weren't sashaying around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Relegated to the background, they chewed gum and showed impatience at the monotony of it all.

"Boys keep swinging, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a momentary pang of understanding for the backing singers, with their thick cosmetics, awkward hairpieces and constricting garments.

They gave the impression of as ill-at-ease as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were longing for it all to end. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three individuals presenting as female, one of them ripped off her wig, removed the cosmetics from her face, and revealed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Of course, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to shed all constraints and become Bowie too. I craved his lean physique and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his flat chest; I sought to become the lean-figured, Bowie's German period. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would require being a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a different challenge, but gender transition was a much more frightening prospect.

It took me additional years before I was willing. Meanwhile, I tried my hardest to embrace manhood: I ceased using cosmetics and discarded all my women's clothing, trimmed my tresses and began donning masculine outfits.

I altered how I sat, changed my stride, and modified my personal references, but I halted before hormonal treatment - the possibility of rejection and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

After the David Bowie display completed its global journey 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 a person I wasn't.

Positioned before the identical footage in 2018, I knew for certain that the problem wasn't my clothes, it was my body. I didn't identify as a butch female; I was a male with feminine qualities who'd been wearing drag all his life. I wanted to transform myself into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I was able to.

I booked myself in to see a doctor not long after. The process required further time before my transition was complete, but not a single concern I anticipated occurred.

I maintain many of my traditional womanly traits, so others regularly misinterpret me for a gay man, but I accept this. I desired the liberty to experiment with identity like Bowie did - and given that I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.