Well people can give me opinions all they want. It doesn't change that I'm transsexual. I've "earned" my place by dealing with those scumbags (the people that have tried tearing me down over my identity), and nothing about what they've done has changed my course any. There are only two real things that I've changed about me since being out and open about my intention to transition:
1.) Stop taking anything and everything trans related so seriously. As in life-or-death seriously. I hated who I was becoming when I would shut people down by being a hostile pain in the rear anytime someone said something I misconstrued as offensive. More people abandoned me over this than those that left just because I told them I'm a woman.
The single greatest thing that ever helped me change all of this was a line from a fictional show by the name of Game of Thrones; "Let me give you some advice, b***ard; never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you."
Once I learned to fully accept within myself who I am, I learned to stop caring what other people and their opinions of me are. By embracing openness about who I am and laughing off the dumb useless garbage people will spew at you in their ignorance; I learned to use who I am as armor against their hate and stupidity. Eventually when people saw how much more comfortable I was in my own skin (metaphorically speaking of course) by living as a woman, they thought "Oh hey, maybe this is something that helps her. She's more even kilter, confident, and pleasant to be around." I stopped giving off that vibe that lent credibility to the hateful stereotype that transpeople are mentally unhinged. In fact by living by example, people around me have come to see that not all trans people are bad and that some of the things I say (like the fact that I'm actually a woman trapped in a man's body and that I'm happiest when I can alter that enough to stop looking like a dude) might actually be true. Does the sun shine out of my every orifice? No. (if it did, do they make burn cream for those areas?)
I'm still grouchy in the morning, I still get mad over dumb things, I have massive procrastination issues, and maybe one of these days I'll remember to stop drinking out of the milk jug and exemplify more "lady-like" manners. But my personality and confidence has improved ten fold and it gets further tempered by all those hateful attacks that happen semi-frequently.
2.) Mixing blue eyeshadow with red lipstick is the dumbest cosmetic idea I could have thought of doing and I still wake up in night sweats wondering what on Earth I was thinking trying that look out, and in public no less.