Today the world mourns the passing of David Bowie, a man whose abilities to defy expectations and constantly reinvent himself made him an icon to generations of fans.
It seems counterintuitive—although Bowie was all about surprising people—but in 1972 the man who would later describe himself as a “closet heterosexual” came out to the press as gay.
The reporter reflected later:
I met Bowie in his publisher's office, high above Regent Street. He was dolled up as Ziggy, before the world knew of rock stars from outer space. Skintight pantsuit, big hair, huge, red plastic boots - dazzling. Only recently had he stopped wearing a dress - 'a man's dress,' he elaborated. He was charming, slightly flirtatious, but made me uncomfortable with myself. 'Camp as a row of tents,' I wrote - did I invent that phrase? - when I wanted to be unmanly and shout: he is unreservedly fabulous.
Sometime later, Bowie would walk back his homosexuality, telling Playboy he was actually bisexual. This path, from outrageously gender nonconforming Ziggy Stardust to bisexual to out heterosexual runs backward from Elton John's well-known transition from (assumed) straight to bisexual to gay.
A cynic might question whether Bowie deserves to be considered a pioneer or a hero to gender and sexual minorities given that his act was, at least partly, invented to draw attention and sales. He reflected in a 2002 interview on his declaration of bisexuality, having been asked if he considered it a mistake:
Interesting. [Long pause] I don't think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners nor be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that bisexuality became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.
It seems another irony of Bowie's colorful life, then, that today on Aljazeera America there is an article calling him “an enduring role model to young trans people”. The people interviewed in that piece point particularly to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust persona and to his performance as the campy goblin king in Labyrinth as examples of someone who could challenge gender norms and be successful in life. Even knowing that Ziggy was a character played by Bowie and not the man himself, one of the subjects remarked that “she felt she had been putting on her own performance to blend in. Bowie’s ability to defy gender norms — and defy them confidently — was inspirational. ‘It was some of the only hope about my trans-ness that I had at the time’”.
I suppose it goes to show that you don't have to set out to be a hero in order to inspire people. David Bowie may not have wanted to much more than entertain people in new ways, but his legacy will live on in his groundbreaking performances and in the lives of people around the world who learned it was okay to be different from his example.