As a counselor, author, and public speaker, Lexingtonian Grace Anne Stevens’ career is about asking one simple question.

“I just happen to be transgender, that’s my journey,” Stevens said, a woman who five years ago began openly expressing herself as such. “What’s yours?”

Born Larnie Rabinowitz, 68-year-old Stevens lived much of her life in hiding. From an early age, the feeling that she was born in the wrong body plagued her. It took her 64 years to break through the barriers to fully realize who she was.

Being transgender means someone’s whose current identity differs from their sex at birth, regardless of whether they have changed their biological characteristics.

Stevens tried to express how out of place she felt in the world in a symbolic story of her birth in her book, "Living My Truth."

“Wrong! She thought. Wrong! She knew. She started to yell and argue, but all she could hear was her crying getting louder and louder,” Stevens wrote in her book, part autobiography, part motivational literature.

From an early age, Stevens knew she was somehow different than how the world saw her.

“The only thing she could do was hide for a long time,” Stevens said. “I knew by the time of 8 that there was something odd, something wrong.”

Stevens said the source of her out-of-place feeling came from not living authentically with who she actually was. Her work since telling the world she is a woman has been focused on helping everybody, not just those struggling with gender identity, to live authentically.

“It’s not about being transgender. I can do ‘Trans-101’ until the cows come home,” Stevens said. “We grow up thinking we need to meet expectations of other people, such as parents and culture. We really do not know who we are and what our relationship is with ourselves. That turns out to be my mission.”

In struggling with her gender identity, the fear she would lose her loved ones kept her inside the cage she lived in for over six decades, she said. The risks of living authentically can be precarious, but doing so helps build the relationship people can have with themselves, she said.

“'What if my kids abandon me? If they choose to have nothing to do with me?' That was my hardest decision,” Stevens said. “I told myself 'that is their journey in life.' But I had to be true to myself. I reached the point in my early 60s that I said I need to finish my life out living who I really am.”

Since then, Stevens said she has enjoyed a great relationship with her three children, her ex-wife, and extended family. According to her, family parties and holidays are a big event.

"I’m so blessed in my transition in the openness and acceptance of my family,” Stevens said.

For the majority of her career, Stevens was an electrical engineer. Since changing her gender expression, she has become a weekly contributor to the Huffington Post, written a book, and began accepting public speaking engagements to spread her philosophy.

“I just get up every morning and have so much gratitude that I was able to make the journey to find my truth. How can I help other people deal with their battles,” Stevens said. “The fact that I am not spending 24/7 hiding parts of me is allowing that creative process to flourish.”

Stevens said coming out of hiding, and seeing her youngest son be inspired to live more authentically after she announced her true gender identity, helped her to realize what was her true calling. She said her son's life changes showed her inspirational speaking and sharing her story would create the biggest impact.

“This whole writing and speaking business got created because of him. He called me up and said, ‘Dad, I realized I’m not doing what I really want to do,’” Stevens said. “He said, ‘I don’t want to be your age and realize I went down the wrong path in life.”

Showing people how to live authentically, according to Stevens, is how people can claim what is rightfully theirs.

“My desire is to fight for human rights, for everybody to fight for just who they are, and that they don’t have to live their life living on someone else’s terms,” Stevens said. “Whose life are you living?”

In April, Stevens spoke to a crowd of more than 100 where she posed the question which has guided her career.

“If I can transition genders at the age of 64, what holds you back from living your true life?” Stevens asked.