Hi Toni, Lukcia here. You are doing well. At forty years of age, you were transgender before significant social acceptance occurred. The 1980’s were not a forgiving years except in isolated hubs of LGBT activity. I am almost 30 years older than you, and I have always accepted who I was, but lived in an unaccepting world. Find confidence in who you are now. Continue to not care what other people think, but a better goal would be to fully own who you are, confidently move through your life as Toni; then you can stop not-caring what they think. You should come to a point where people think of you as you think of you. So, think the very best of yourself, live your truths, be proud, embrace Toni.
Of course I won’t recommend doing the “Happy-Girl” dance in a cowboy bar at Texas A&M.
Love
Lukcia