Back in 2011, a couple of years before the renowned David Bowie show debuted at the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, I came out as a gay woman. Previously, I had exclusively dated men, including one I had married. After a couple of years, I found myself in my early 40s, a newly single mother of four, living in the America.
Throughout this phase, I had begun to doubt both my sense of self and attraction preferences, looking to find answers.
I entered the world in England during the dawn of the seventies era - before the internet. As teenagers, my friends and I were without online forums or YouTube to turn to when we had curiosities about intimacy; conversely, we sought guidance from music icons, and throughout the eighties, musicians were experimenting with gender norms.
The iconic vocalist donned masculine attire, The Culture Club frontman adopted girls' clothes, and musical acts such as well-known groups featured artists who were proudly homosexual.
I craved his lean physique and sharp haircut, his strong features and masculine torso. I aimed to personify the artist's German phase
Throughout the 90s, I spent my time driving a bike and wearing androgynous clothing, but I reverted back to conventional female presentation when I decided to wed. My spouse relocated us to the United States in 2007, but when the union collapsed I felt an undeniable attraction revisiting the manhood I had once given up.
Since nobody played with gender quite like David Bowie, I decided to spend a free afternoon during a summer trip returning to England at the gallery, anticipating that perhaps he could help me figure it out.
I lacked clarity exactly what I was searching for when I walked into the show - perhaps I hoped that by losing myself in the richness of Bowie's gender experimentation, I might, as a result, encounter a hint about my true nature.
Quickly I discovered myself standing in front of a modest display where the music video for "Boys Keep Swinging" was playing on repeat. Bowie was strutting his stuff in the foreground, looking stylish in a dark grey suit, while to the side three backing singers in feminine attire gathered around a microphone.
Differing from the drag queens I had encountered in real life, these ladies failed to move around the stage with the self-assurance of inherent stars; rather they looked bored and annoyed. Placed in secondary positions, they chewed gum and rolled their eyes at the tedium of it all.
"The song's lyrics, boys always work it out," Bowie voiced happily, seemingly unaware to their diminished energy. I felt a momentary pang of empathy for the accompanying performers, with their thick cosmetics, ill-fitting wigs and too-tight dresses.
They appeared to feel as awkward as I did in feminine attire - frustrated and eager, as if they were longing 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, removed the cosmetics from her face, and showed herself to be ... Bowie! Shocker. (Of course, there were two other David Bowies as well.)
At that moment, I became completely convinced that I wanted to remove everything and emulate the artist. I wanted his narrow hips and his sharp haircut, 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 truly become Bowie, first I would need to be a man.
Declaring myself as queer was a separate matter, but personal transformation was a significantly scarier possibility.
It took me additional years before I was ready. Meanwhile, I made every effort to become more masculine: I ceased using cosmetics and threw away all my skirts and dresses, shortened my locks and started wearing men's clothes.
I changed my seating posture, changed my stride, and adopted new identifiers, but I stopped short of medical intervention - the potential for denial and second thoughts had left me paralysed with fear.
After the David Bowie show completed its global journey with a engagement in Brooklyn, New York, following that period, I went back. I had experienced a turning point. I was unable to continue acting to be something I was not.
Standing in front of the identical footage in 2018, I became completely convinced that the issue wasn't about my clothing, it was my biological self. I wasn't a masculine woman; I was a feminine man who'd been wearing drag throughout his existence. I desired to change into the individual in the stylish outfit, moving in the illumination, and at that moment I understood that I had the capacity to.
I made arrangements to see a doctor soon after. The process required further time before my transition was complete, but none of the things I worried about came true.
I still have many of my female characteristics, so people often mistake me for a gay man, but I'm OK with that. I desired the liberty to play with gender as Bowie had - and since I'm comfortable in my body, I am able to.