I Believed Myself to Be a Homosexual Woman - The Legendary Artist Enabled Me to Uncover the Reality

In 2011, a couple of years ahead of the celebrated David Bowie exhibition launched at the famous Victoria and Albert Museum in England, I publicly announced a gay woman. Until that moment, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had wed. By 2013, I found myself approaching middle age, a freshly divorced mother of four, making my home in the United States.

Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and attraction preferences, seeking out understanding.

My birthplace was England during the early 1970s - before the internet. When we were young, my peers and I didn't have social platforms or YouTube to consult when we had questions about sex; instead, we looked to celebrity musicians, and during the 80s, everyone was experimenting with gender norms.

The iconic vocalist sported boys' clothes, The flamboyant singer adopted feminine outfits, and bands such as well-known groups featured members who were publicly out.

I wanted his narrow hips and sharp haircut, his strong features and flat chest. I aimed to personify the Berlin-era Bowie

During the nineties, I lived riding a motorbike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I went back to traditional womanhood when I chose to get married. My husband transferred our home to the US in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an powerful draw revisiting the masculinity I had earlier relinquished.

Considering that no artist played with gender to the extent of David Bowie, I opted to spend a free afternoon during a warm-weather journey visiting Britain at the gallery, hoping that possibly he could guide my understanding.

I didn't know precisely what I was looking for when I walked into the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, consequently, encounter a hint about my own identity.

Quickly I discovered myself facing a modest display where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was recurring endlessly. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking stylish in a slate-colored ensemble, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire crowded round a microphone.

Differing from the performers I had encountered in real life, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the poise of inherent stars; instead they looked disinterested and irritated. Placed in secondary positions, they had gum in their mouths and showed impatience at the tedium of it all.

"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie sang cheerfully, appearing ignorant to their lack of enthusiasm. I felt a fleeting feeling of empathy for the backing singers, with their heavy makeup, awkward hairpieces and restrictive outfits.

They appeared to feel as ill-at-ease as I did in women's clothes - frustrated and eager, as if they were yearning for it all to be over. Precisely when I realized I was identifying with three men dressed in drag, one of them removed her wig, smeared the lipstick from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Surprise. (Naturally, there were further David Bowies as well.)

At that moment, I knew for certain that I wanted to rip it all off and emulate the artist. I wanted his slender frame and his precise cut, his angular jaw and his male chest; I aimed to personify the slender-shaped, Berlin-era Bowie. Nevertheless I was unable to, because to genuinely embody Bowie, first I would have to become a man.

Declaring myself as gay was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier outlook.

It took me additional years before I was willing. In the meantime, I made every effort to become more masculine: I stopped wearing makeup and eliminated all my feminine garments, cut off my hair and started wearing men's clothes.

I sat differently, changed my stride, and changed my name and pronouns, but I paused at medical intervention - the potential for denial and remorse had left me paralysed with fear.

When the David Bowie show concluded its international run with a engagement in the American metropolis, following that period, I revisited. I had reached a breaking point. I couldn't go on pretending to be an identity that didn't fit.

Facing the same video in 2018, I knew for certain that the issue wasn't my clothes, it was my physical form. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I aimed to transition into the person in the polished attire, moving in the illumination, and now I realized that I was able to.

I made arrangements to see a doctor soon after. The process required further time before my personal journey finished, but none of the things I feared came true.

I still have many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm comfortable with that outcome. I wanted the freedom to explore expression like Bowie did - and now that I'm content with my physical form, I have that capacity.