March 12, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode, Savannah asks Julie to chat about what drives male-to-female crossdressers to adopt a feminine presentation. What was the spark that initially led to the first and, ultimately, ongoing experiences of femdom? Did the thoughts come from a natural subconscious space or were there extenuating circumstances that conditioned the body to use femininity as a suit of armor against certain assaults? Savannah and Julie dig a little under the surface to raise awareness and further discussion.
Examples of childhood trauma that could potentially contribute to gender dysphoria include: being forced to conform to gender stereotypes, severe gender-based bullying, physical or sexual abuse related to one's perceived gender, parental rejection of a child's gender expression, consistent misgendering, and experiences of extreme emotional neglect, particularly when tied to gender identity; essentially, any traumatic experience where a child feels deeply disconnected from their assigned gender due to societal expectations or negative interactions with others.
-----
SAVANNAH HAUK is the author of “Living with Crossdressing: Defining a New Normal” and “Living with Crossdressing: Discovering your True Identity“. While both focus on the male-to-female (mtf) crossdresser, “Defining a New Normal” delves into crossdressing and relationships and “Discovering Your True Identity” looks at the individual crossdressing journey. Her latest achievements are two TEDx Talks, one entitled "Demystifying the Crossdressing Experience" and the other "13 Milliseconds: First Impressions of Gender Expression". Savannah is a male-to-female dual-gender crossdresser who is visible in the Upstate of South Carolina, active in local groups and advocating as a public speaker at LGBTQ+ conferences and workshops across the United States. At the moment, Savannah is working on more books, blogs, and projects focused on letting every crossdresser–young and mature–find their own confidence, expression, identity and voice.
IG @savannahhauk | FB @savannahhauk | FB @livingwithcrossdressing | web @livingwithcrossdressing.com
------
JULIE RUBENSTEIN is a dedicated ally to transgender community and the certified image consultant and co-owner of Fox and Hanger. F&H is a unique service for transgender women and male-to-female crossdressers that creates customized virtual fashion and style “lookbooks”. Julie intuitively connects with each client to find them appropriate clothes, makeup, hair, and shape wear all in alignment with their budget, body type, authentic style and unique personality. Julie also provides enfemme coaching and wardrobe support. Julie has made it her life’s work to help MTF individuals feel safe and confident when it comes to their female persona, expression and identity.
IG @Juliemtfstyle | FB @foxandhanger | web @FoxandHanger.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
You're listening to the Fox in aPhoenix podcast, understanding
the feminine cross dressing experience.
I'm Savannah Hawk, dual gender male to female cross dresser,
LGBTQ plus advocate, TEDx speaker, and author of the
Living with Cross Dressing book series.
And I'm Julie Rubenstein, proud ally and Co founder of Fox and
(00:30):
hanger.com, a feminine styling and life coaching service for
crossdressers and transgender women.
Hey, Julie. Hi, Savannah.
Hi, I wanted to wait a second. Yeah, I saw you mid yawn and
then I want to say hi until you're taking a full breath.
Thank you. Free recording.
You were just telling me about all the things that you have on
(00:51):
your plate, all the traveling, all the events, all the books,
all the this, all of that. And right after you did that
lengthy list, I just started to yawn.
And you thought we moved on whenyou press recorded.
Oh no, I've tired, tears in my eyes.
And thank you for waiting, but I'm here.
Yes. I'm quitting.
(01:11):
I forget about it. What?
I will never forget. Never forget.
Yeah, like you said, today's a rundown day for me.
I did get up earlier. I mean, they got up with the
dogs as they usually do. And I'm usually like, I'll go
back to bed until 11. And I was like, Nope, 9:30 I was
out and about getting my stuff done 'cause I'm like right on
(01:32):
the precipice. I know.
I see you young. I was right on the precipice of
finishing Book 3 for pre editor edits.
It's like a read through and youclean it up as best you can.
So now that's done, I'll print it.
I'll print it at work tomorrow. I'll use the office copier to
print it out and that way it'll be read for editor review.
(01:54):
And yeah, like you were saying, thank you for giving the list.
You know, Keystone's coming up, so I'll be there at my workshop
Saturday afternoon, the last slot before I may go to the gala
event. So hopefully you'll be well
attended. I look forward to seeing
everybody start of the month. I have a business trip, so I'm
going to head to New York for a few days.
(02:14):
And super secret, I'm not going to give you lots of details.
Joey, do you remember a young woman named Jennifer sometimes?
I do. I do.
The founding mother, yes. She was in charge of Cross
Breast treble all those many moons ago and she is doing well.
(02:34):
She took herself away from the limelight of podcasting and the
Cross Dress travel.com website and organizing the cruises.
Special shout out to her that wemiss and love you and I was
approached by the now organizersof Cross Dress Travel to be on a
cruise in the fall to do some workshops.
(02:55):
So that's all to give you at themoment.
All right, First of all, yes, that was a fantasy we both had
doing the cruises work in the room.
OK, so if you happen to talk to her again, I'm just saying first
of all, how much is the cruise? We'll talk later.
And second of all, you know, if you had to bring a red headed
someone on a cruise somewhere, I'm a veils.
(03:17):
Yes, I'm fortunate that slide isalready gone to Judy, who also
loves cruises and wants to be a part of the action.
So all right, she's sorry. She's my plus, so she's.
She's your plus one, but I'm just saying, if ever this
person, yes, OK, not Jennifer sometimes, but this person who
we won't say the name because I don't know and I don't want to
(03:37):
out the person should just say you know, also know you do a.
Podcast it does know hey, you never you might be looked up in
the future for other events. They want to expand beyond just
cruises. They want to do destination
things. They have all sorts of plans.
So this is just the start of something big for them and I
will give more details as they come.
(03:58):
I will be promoting it as it gets more finalized through the
next month or two so people can go ahead and sign up.
That's what I'll give you for now and hopefully more
information to. Come, all right, I'm jealous,
but I'm very, very happy for you.
You know my dreamable dream. Speaking of cruises and
Jennifer, sometimes I would liketo dig her up, find her and
(04:20):
Elizabeth and just get them on the podcast.
You know, that's the dream. That is one of the dreams we
have, many dreams. We have many dreams, but that is
the dream and I also know that it is just a dream because
people have their own timelines in life, so they.
Do they do? That would be a dream.
That would be a dream. Enough about me.
What's going on with you? I too have something that I will
(04:42):
be promoting as it gets further and further into the works and
it gets up on the website. Spoiler alert, it's a nine week
intensive femininity. I don't know if I'm calling it a
course, I don't know if I'm calling it a program, but is
basically everything I have doneover the past decade.
(05:04):
Do you believe I can say that with Fox and Hanger that will go
into my one-on-one support and my coaching with a little more
intention with some goals working from the inside out.
So that's all I can say for now,but I'm really excited and
hopefully next podcast I can share a little more because I'm
(05:24):
just aching to get it on the website and get started.
Nice. I'm way out.
Excited to hear more about it. Yeah, Speaking of Inside Out,
you know how you do it, but yourSegways are amazing.
Really. Yes.
Because the topic today is aboutInside out and it's been
something I've struggled with the understanding struggle with
(05:46):
other people's journeys and whatled them from point A to point B
and then going off to Point C inthe future.
I've come across many individuals with many different
stories and some of them are notmine.
They're not how I approached what I'm doing, which I feel was
very organic in its genesis and it's and it's blossoming into
(06:08):
who I am now. Not without the struggles
obviously, but I've heard other stories of people who had more
traumatic childhoods and whetheror not those traumas would lead
to self analysis or even leaningtowards gender diversity, even
if you never thought you would have.
(06:28):
But maybe there was something that was that spring point of a
trauma that brought us forward. So I want to talk about the
cross dressing journey as organic versus traumatic.
I did some research today because I have examples from
others that I know where they were made to dress up as a girl
(06:49):
by their sisters. And even though that simulate
doesn't all of a sudden make yougender diverse, there could have
been something there that led tothe like, Oh, I like this.
I like how this they like cover and and all this.
Breadcrumb. Yeah, crack open this thing that
you would never thought about had you not had this experience.
(07:09):
We think a trauma is abuse and violent and things that are
really offense we overcome in order to try to find ourselves.
And a lot of times it's a point in time that led you down a
different path. So what?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I look up deep in thought and
try to collect my thoughts and say something and I look up.
(07:30):
I see the bosom of a mannequin in frame with butterflies on it.
I'm like, wait. Sorry, I'm listening to you
totally. It's my ADD.
I'm really trying, you know, I'mtrying to, since I don't work at
the preschool anymore, I'm really trying to create this
corner of my bedroom to be the office of my dreams because I
(07:53):
just, I'm just trying right until I get a more formal off.
And and so as you're talking, I'm in my own little world
listening actively. OK, I have a lot to say about
this, but my ADD is just, I don't like those dark clothes or
no book showing. So I'm just going to take this
Madigan and make a nice and I still haven't figured out I had
(08:16):
this whole plan for an idea. So I've got the the rolling rack
that's underneath my bed, you know, hiding from the husband.
And I got this mannequin to recreate the butterfly mannequin
from my website. I got the freaking butterflies
over there. But I still haven't figured out
the placement in the evening. Eddie, though, that's your
(08:39):
topic. Speaking of, you have lots to
say about the topic. Yes, let's let's go to you, my
lovely Co host and hear what youhave to say on the topic in
here. Well, I think that when we think
of something like you said, whenwe think of trauma, we think of
maybe a more PTSD kind of situation where you're walking
(09:01):
through life in everyday situations and then something
happens where you're immediatelytriggered and you go back to
this trigger point from your childhood or whatever it is.
But trauma or impactful events, let's just say it's they impact
you, whether it be a painful, Ohmy God, do you see that?
(09:21):
All right, ladies and gentlemen and significant others, I just
said something really amazing and suddenly the AI generator
released these fireworks. OK, so I've tried to stay on
task. That was trying.
I don't know how that happens, but it was crazy.
It was magical. So when we think about these
(09:44):
impactful events with the cross dressing lens, these are things
like having your sister dress you up and feeling good about
it. And then that leads to today
where you are either unpacking the past, figuring out where you
got to this place, why you like cross dressing, could read you
back to that time. I worked with a client once.
(10:05):
Their mother, when they were born, rejected the fact that
they were male. And the mother decided in their
own psycho CDs that they would acknowledge this baby as a girl.
And so for the first three yearsof this biological boy's life,
they dressed them as a girl, they responded to them as
(10:26):
female. And it was very confusing for
this client. And that event directly impacted
how they came to me in terms of rediscovering, processing this
confusing early childhood, earlydevelopment thing and how it
relates to their gender queerness today.
(10:46):
So it's really interesting. And more often than not, when I
meet with clients, it starts from childhood.
When have you, when did you start dressing?
And they say, hey, I'm newbie tothis.
I don't have any. But you know, there's always a
but. And then they named the specific
moment in time or the specific series of events where they once
(11:11):
snuck in their mom's closet and they put on their heels.
They have that specific memory of the sound of the heels
clickety clacking. They have this experience where
their prom date actually let them try on a gown and was open
and helping them be full fam before they went out to the
prom. That's a kind of impactful story
(11:34):
that can influence the gender diverse person that you are
today. So totally this topic really
sits home with me because I knowI'm very aware of many of the
things that I do in relationships to where I get it
from, almost like a an OCD or whatever it is.
(11:54):
This is something that has been a part of my personality for so
long as I continue to unpack thetraumas in my life and work in
therapy. Now something like getting laid
off from a job or something that's someone having cancer
near death experience can shake those detachments to the past
and reset you and figure out OK,what is now, which is a place
(12:16):
where I really want people to get to.
OK, this is how it relates and you can connect the dogs back
there. But what's real now?
Yeah, those are my thoughts. Yeah.
And I'm doing a lot of singles therapy these days and even I
was like, I don't need therapy, but it does give you, it gives
me especially that window to thepast, like you said.
(12:39):
But like what to ask you those classic questions of how is your
parents relationship? How is your relationship with
you? What was your upbringing like,
etcetera, etcetera. And I know we have, I know and I
think we all know that memory isvery temperamental, that the
memory we have is just the memory of the memory of the
memory. We don't have the photographic
(12:59):
memory where we know the event exactly and the feelings of the
event exactly. We just have that one, the time
between the memory and now in your recall of it based on
today's lens versus your childhood lens.
That being said, when I was asked about my parents yelling
at each other and arguing about whatever the rest of us would be
(13:21):
in the next room, staying as quiet and small as possible.
And so when you think about that, that's where my conflict
avoidance comes in, where that gives me a lot of triggering
anxiety when people start getting loud and getting but you
want to be. Quiet or aggressive?
I want to avoid it. Yeah, absolutely.
So it's those type of things, anexample of something in your
(13:43):
childhood can affect you. Even today, when I'm 57 years
old, I have people at work who just talk loud, and that gives
me just a little blush of anxiety, not because they're
being aggressive, but just because they're being loud.
Yeah, I'm realizing now it's like, Oh yeah, I can see why
that's triggering me a little because of recognizing the past.
(14:05):
Now, with all that said, I'm also looking at my trains
journey, right, my CD journey inthat I start asking myself
questions because I feel I am very organic in my development.
I don't feel like there was any overt trauma that would lead me
from a normal heterocysts existence to where I am now.
So I'm like, all right, I have asister, an older sister.
(14:27):
I have a younger autistic brother.
She and I didn't play all that often together.
She's a couple years older than me.
She didn't want me around, so itwasn't like she and I were like,
let's play Barbies together. So I did get that femme
influence from her. I was very much like a mama's
boy in a lot of ways because my dad was out there like 6-7 days
(14:48):
a week working. But I also craved that paternal
influence. I wanted to throw the football
around when he was home. I want to have that relationship
with my father. So I was looking for that male
bonding side. Now, just because I didn't get
it in the way I wanted, it did not all of a sudden convert me
to more feminine pursuits because that wasn't like my mom
(15:11):
was. All right, all right, Chucky,
let's go make a basket. And with flowers for people in
my, I didn't get that influence either.
So when I look at my life and mydevelopment, I do see it very
isolated in terms of I did it onmy own in private.
I did have a lot of influence other than clothes I could
choose from. And I just developed on my own
(15:31):
and just fought the normal societal constraints and
restraints and overcoming viewpoints, etcetera, and all
the isms that come with who you are as a person.
And so if I came to this as because it was part of my
nature, not because something made this my nature.
Right. I'm going to read something to
you real quick just so we can level set as well for what could
(15:52):
be traumatic, what could cause things.
The examples of childhood traumathat could potentially
contribute to gender dysphoria include being forced to conform
to gender stereotypes, severe gender based bullying, physical
or sexual abuse related to one'sperceived gender, parental
rejection of a child's gender expression, consistent
(16:13):
misgendering, and experience of extreme emotional neglect,
particularly when tied to genderidentity.
Essentially, any traumatic experience where a child feels
deeply disconnected from their assigned gender due to societal
expectations or negative interactions with others.
That was really telling to me when I was researching this and
(16:33):
that. OK, well, if you start
disassociating from your own gender, in my eyes and my brain,
it makes complete sense while you start pursuing something
else. I feel like if you were sexually
abused as a little boy by somebody that's seen her family
or extended family, and you realize, well, they never
touched my sister in that way. And maybe you want to start
(16:55):
identifying more feminine so youcan escape the possibility that
could happen to you in the future.
Things like that are like the extreme traumatic trauma that
could cause that. Yeah.
Yeah. And that to me is trauma.
I mean, trauma is extreme and itcould happen in a second.
I was just talking to my friend Margo, who I grew up with, like
(17:16):
sisters. That's our relationship.
So when I went to high school and there was this moment that
I've talked about on the air where I showered and then I got
out. I see two panties on the bed and
I would like clean laundry. And I decided, like, I had this
inkling to just try it on, to wear it.
I knew it was edgy and I knew they weren't mine.
(17:36):
And so I did. And she came in and was like
freaked out. OK, trauma instant.
What are you doing? Oh my God, that's so gross.
What are you doing? And then immediately then
shifted to her older sister coming in and be like, you guys
are sisters, So what? And deactivated that trauma.
That being said, I remember thatthat's in my mind when I talked
(17:58):
to her today on the phone. Trauma has a way of just making
a little baby nest and and sitting there.
So I'm going to assume based on what you shared and what I know
of you as a person that you've never had that moment or else it
would be there. Accessible when apps, Yeah.
Exactly. I don't have anything unless
(18:20):
somehow I completely blocked it out of my memory.
There's nothing that I can pointto that would even be an inkling
to oh, I can see why I want to be female as a result of this
single experience or series of movements.
And yet you have so many experience as you bridge back
where this has not only been a thing for you, but you have
(18:40):
concrete examples of this all happening.
For example, when you tried a variety of different breasts on
filling up the balloons with water in the sink, having a pop,
maybe trying some bird seed. And then there your wide variety
of different ways in which you were able to add some weight to
an area of your body that was that is extremely feminine.
(19:04):
So I'm sure you have those memories and they're cozy and
they're used as places on the map.
But when it comes to trauma, it's hard to break unless you
have some serious Dr. therapy where they have you bridge back
and then you do work on a real cellular level.
It's a lot more intense. Unless you have something like
that, it's really hard. Maybe talk therapy for some, but
(19:27):
it's really hard to break that idea of your cross dressing
experience. Not being shameful, not being
closeted. You know, last episode we talked
a lot about why does the CD individual still feel like
they're need to go in the closetwhen they told their significant
other they already came out. That may be confusing for the
(19:50):
significant other. Why are they hiding?
I'm confused. That's childhood shit that goes
back even more to moments of trauma from the past.
It's not just, oh, as an adult or, you know, like, I feel like
it's deeper than simply the pastfive years or however long
(20:11):
you've kept this secret in the closet in your adulthood.
I mean, I used to literally hidein the closet as a child, like
always. Just it was my own little
private space. I'd shut the closet door and no
one would know I was in the roomor home or whatever.
And I felt very safe and secure.I used to play like Cinderella
little match girl in the shadows.
(20:33):
And so I don't know, I've been office today with in my closet
right now with the doors open, who knows?
But what do you have to say about?
Well, I want to give a couple other examples to start talking
about. Not trauma necessarily, but
discovery. I had one friend in New York who
had a previous girlfriend who wanted them to wear panties.
(20:56):
And according to them, they had no interest or thought to do it.
And so they're like, OK, you know, you're supportive of you.
Sure, we'll do this thing. And then all of a sudden it
became, oh, I love panties. I don't wear panties.
And that led to expanding on theidentity in this feminine way.
I had another friend who had that childhood, not necessarily
trauma, but the sister dressed them up as a girl and then found
(21:20):
that the father was very abusiveto him as a boy, but left the
girls alone. So then all of a sudden, there's
again that kind of disassociation of, oof, if I
just don't act like this, but I act like that I'll get through.
I'll be safer if I acted this other way.
And that God knows what that could do in your formative
(21:41):
years, but that that one is a childhood trauma and the other
one is just an opportunity that presented itself that led to a
whole different life. It was just a pivot point of,
oh, huh, I do like this. It's about discovery, it's about
repression, it's about trauma. Just the idea that we talked
about it. And again, we're talking about a
very binary way, like organic versus traumatic, that it's not
(22:04):
only those two things, it's everything in between and
beyond. But it's always been something
in my own self pursuit of knowledge and understanding of
myself, of the wise. When sometimes I get hung up on
the wise, you know that about me.
It's like, I want to know why I am the way I am because that's
all I am. And sometimes it's not as
important, but there is this little kernel of want of
(22:27):
discovery to, I don't know, maybe just rationalize that it's
OK. And I'm like 99.9% certain about
the organic nature of my diversity and that it comes from
a positive internal place. But I do not want to discount
those people out there who are listening, whose diversity came
from repression, came from trauma, came from something in a
(22:50):
childhood that gave them PTSD, gave them a reason to hide
behind this veneer as a measure of safety.
Like you in your closet, close the door and feeling safe.
That is a very apartment to metaphor for why a lot of people
dress because it's a safer environment now.
We don't live and save times right now.
But yet even with that, some people will feel much safer in
(23:13):
this feminine shield, this feminine armor that just gives
them an out to express themselves in a different way.
Whereas we talked about people who are on a journey that goes
beyond quote UN quote, the crossdressing journey went to the
transness of things. And as I always tell people,
trans is an abroad statement. We're all trans in our own way
in our on this journey. Some people just end up getting
(23:35):
off the edge of our stop, then us.
So yeah, I'm sure we could come up with other examples.
I just wanted to acknowledge that we understand that our
diversity comes from different places.
Totally. And as you're talking, an
interesting point came to my head.
And that's knowing myself, right?
So let's say you are born biological male and you have
(24:00):
very feminine features. Everyone responds, Oh, you'd be
such a pretty girl or you, whatever it is, there's that
awareness of the times that are not now where if I look feminine
or if I, my body language is feminine, like I can try to
Butch it up, but that's going tohave a certain response from
(24:20):
people. People will assume I'm gay,
right? So this is just a the nature of
our how we grew up that femininity and having feminine
soft features and called so pretty or whatever it is.
There has got to be some confusing moments with that as
you're exploring this side, you know, let's say a feminine voice
(24:41):
suddenly like, well, I want to try and address because I'm
feminine. There's also this whole you're
such a Sissy there. There's this whole culture that
bridges back to maybe the 50's, the 60s before then, where if
you act a certain way, if you'redrawn to certain things that are
more feminine, things to be drawn to, for example, painting,
(25:03):
if you're more artsy, if you're more sensitive, then you must be
gay. So now I'm bringing it back to
this time we're in, where we know that sexuality and gender
are two different things. We're all just still trying to
learn, that included. We're still trying to wrap our
head around that and the fact that we don't as a culture and
society say that so much anymore.
(25:26):
Especially, I mean, I'm in California, so I'm just speaking
for my state. If someone is more feminine, the
woke individuals are not going to say, oh, they must be gay.
At least me the the people that aren't their parents, they're
going to instantly go to. I wonder if they're trans.
You know the thing in the parental brain that is of now,
if that makes sense. No it.
Does. Yeah, absolutely as.
(25:47):
We're talking it, we're having this conversation and we're
thinking about the past and we're thinking about different
moments. I also want to put in the whole
sexuality piece to it and what little boys might have thought
back then and how confusing it must have been to say, well, I
like I like girls, but and I'm aboy.
I'm not responding to men in that way.
(26:08):
It's just a lot to unpack to be a child.
Yes, yeah, when your. Parents and friends, and not
your friends, but your parents, friends and adults.
And everybody's telling you you're a certain way because of
how you look. And you only know as a child the
binary because nobody is teaching you diversity at that
age. So in your formative years as
(26:28):
somebody saying, oh, you're so prissy, oh, you'll be so cute as
a girl, 'cause your long hair and your delicate features as a
boy, all of a sudden you start being instilled with this idea
that you must need to be this other way, because the other way
is a stereotype that's accepted,quote UN quote.
And all of a sudden you start being you people are telling you
that you should be a different way.
(26:50):
So yeah, you're become very confused by, but I don't feel
that way. Well, yeah, I must, because look
at how you look and look at whatyou do, right?
Right. So there's butching ups and the
idea we know several trans individuals that have beefed up
that literally went into the service to get this hyper
masculinity just forced upon them.
(27:12):
And to me it goes back to good survival.
So there's a lot of homosexual guys, a lot of cross dressing
individual genderqueer, a lot oftrans women that in high school
they needed to beef up. They decided to be the main
bully and, quote, leader of the pack to just protect themselves.
(27:34):
Yeah, it's so crazy when I thinkback to significant others and
talking to significant others and talking to individuals that
were later in life, crossdressers who came out,
let's say they've been married for 40 years and they just tell
their significant other and or there's a part of the story that
usually finds his way into my eardrums and that, oh, I thought
(27:56):
you were going to say you were gay.
Like that's another angle of it where they're like, well, I
thought you were just so sensitive.
And so, you know, like it's not as common as the shock and the
disassociation with what this means and all that.
But there is occasionally that line that was like, because you
were so sensitive, because you were I was more of the the wife,
the biological woman is more of the the.
(28:17):
Breadwinner and the Yeah. And like the scientific my or
like the less sensitive one, or,you know, however you want to
scramble the gender stereotypes and it's.
Funny you say that because I have examples here and it's all
about repression. OK, So you know, you talk about
people like, oh, I thought you were gay because you're
sensitive, but you took on a very masculine identity to move
(28:40):
forward to get married, married,have the kids, have that way.
So I got some examples here. A young boy constantly mocked
for liking girly activities likedancing, leading to a feeling of
alienation of his male identity.A girl repeatedly told by her
father that she should act more like a girl and be more
submissive, causing an internal conflict about her gender
(29:01):
expression. A transgender child experiencing
severe bullying at school due totheir gender nonconformity,
leading to a desire to fiscally transition to align with her
internal identity. A child raised in a highly
religious household where their gender identity is viewed as
sinful, causing significant emotional distress.
And then we have to go back to what we talked about before.
(29:22):
A child who was sexually abused by a family member who used
their gender as a means of control, leading to a deep sense
of violation and a desire to disassociate from their assigned
sex. So those are a couple examples
of what could be. And so we talked about
repressive nature while my family because I kept a hidden,
I didn't feel repressed in that way specifically.
(29:45):
But you've heard me talk about that conversation of overhearing
my parents talk about the neighbor kid of like he's
probably gay and talked about a very negative way.
I'm like, let me pumpkin brakes and never talking to you about
what I got going on exactly. Is.
All these chain links of repression put upon us as
children that say, hey, if I hide it well enough, I'll go to
(30:06):
the military service so I can masculine it up enough to have
this femininity beaten out of meby those people who know so how
to do it. And all the sudden you spend
years trying to conform only to rediscover at some breaking
point that was never the case. And all you did was spend the
lifetime to that moment trying to cover up the truth.
(30:27):
And once you allow that truth tobecome your truth, all of a
sudden everybody is like, Oh my God, I didn't know.
You're just doing what trendy now is like.
Now this has been me for 20 years.
I just spent a lifetime hiding it because I wasn't brave enough
to be who I am in my own body ormy own mind.
But yeah, we talked about repression.
We talked about trauma, PTSD, all the things that comes with
(30:49):
the brain trying to protect us. Yeah.
And be safe and not be noticed in a negative way by others.
You don't want to be the prey. You know the human speech is
maybe the top of the the predator food chain.
But ma'am, when you feel like you're still being hunted,
that's what you do. All you can do to make sure
you're safe. Yep, Yeah, Wow.
Yeah, this episode definitely turns me on an emotional
(31:13):
intelligence level. So I'm like, wow, yeah.
It's so much. So much goes into the cross
dressing experience beyond expression.
It's really deep. And that's how we have managed
to show up and continuously unpack all the themes that come
with this. It's not as simple as male to
(31:35):
female transformation. It's generally it's not, it's a
huge part of it. And there's so much else, so
much else. And I think that's why when I
first received your book, beyondjust, I don't even think we
record our first episode, but I got the book.
I remember where I was, I was outside on one of those outdoor
(31:58):
furniture pieces, a chair, and Iwas reading your book and I was
like saying out loud, I was like, thank you, thank you.
Like I was just screaming out loud because I'm like, this is
what I needed. This is what I needed because I
came from a background where cross dressing was a kink and I
knew there was more, but I didn't have the context.
(32:18):
So having your book, it literally laid everything out
for me to be like, this is a part of my work.
This is how I show up for my business and help with clothes.
So when people came to me and they basically saying I want to
look intentional. And that made sense to me.
I don't want to look, you know, a cheap Halloween costume.
I want to wear actual clothes. I want to feel like a human in
(32:40):
this part of me, in who I am. So, yeah.
So thanks to your book and the podcast, there's so many more
resources out there for people to hang their hat on when it
comes to their individual journey.
Because if you don't have well informed information, all you
have is your confused mind and nowhere to go and just are lost.
(33:01):
So I'm extremely grateful. Thank you.
For that, that was amazing. The last thing I want to say is
that the physical presentation is really the last thing in my
view. It comes from your head and
comes from your heart about who you are and what your needs are
to create that physical outgoingpresentation in understanding
(33:25):
your gender. But that's just the last stop.
That's just the last thing that occurs, and it's all coming from
what's in your mind and what's in your heart.
I will forever from this point forward say talk therapy just
for your own betterment, not because it may be anything you
feel is wrong with you, but justtalking to somebody who has some
expertise to give you, like you said with a book, give you just
(33:46):
a different perspective, enough to be like, Oh yes, yes, that's
what I needed to now continue myown thinking and go forward.
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate that you said that.
And I do remember that moment waiting around the lounge chair
outside talking about that moment of for something that you
knew was missing, but you just didn't have that context for
(34:08):
where to put that slot in. So thank you for that, yeah.
And you talk about working from the inside out and that's
definitely been my guiding lightwhen it comes to creating this
femininity program that we're going to spend 3 weeks just
working from the inside. And then that expression piece,
the outer stuff is at the end. So totally what you said it it,
(34:31):
it comes from working from the inside out.
It made me start somewhere with some pieces that cue you in
terms of your expression or touching something silky or
whatever it is. But it definitely is an inside
out journey when you're able to really be in a place where you
can unpack the stuff and figure out who you are as it relates to
this. So thank you for this topic.
(34:53):
It was really, oh, thank you, really beautiful.
I have a bunch of upcoming episode ideas that I got from
Leanne while she was here visiting.
And I was just like talking. And I was like, oh, I got to
write that down. Yeah, write down a bunch of
stuff that I will be bringing toyou in the next weeks because
yeah, just thinking about the journey differently that I
(35:14):
haven't really put that punctuation to.
So yeah, thank you to her, thankyou to you.
Thank you for being my lovely Cohost and earned life on this
journey that we call cross dressing and friendship.
Yes. Totally.
So with all that you just shared, I think our listeners
are in for a real treat in 2025 in terms of content and topics
(35:39):
that really ring true. So I'm excited for that as well.
And we love you, dear listeners,and we are here because of you.
We are showing up every week because of you.
You are evidence that it's not just a fringe, a fringe on the
(35:59):
trans world that we live in, or you're not just.
Am I part of the LGBTQIA? Yeah, we are.
OK. We are.
We're here. We're here.
We're gender queer. Forget about it.
OK? And bye for now.
Until next time, you can find meon Facebook at Savannah Hawk or
(36:25):
at Living with Cross Dressing and on Instagram at Savannah
Hawk. Remember, that's HAUK and to
learn more, go to my website livingwithcrossdressing.com.
And you can find me on Instagramand Facebook at Fox and Hanger
or at Julie MTF Style, as well as on our website at
foxandhanger.com. Julie, it's your moment, the
(36:51):
Fox. And the Phoenix Podcast uses
Spotify for creators. Copyright 2025.
Yes, nailed it.
You're listening to the Fox in aPhoenix podcast, understanding
the feminine cross dressing experience.
I'm Savannah Hawk, dual gender male to female cross dresser,
LGBTQ plus advocate, TEDx speaker, and author of the
Living with Cross Dressing book series.
And I'm Julie Rubenstein, proud ally and Co founder of Fox and
(00:30):
hanger.com, a feminine styling and life coaching service for
crossdressers and transgender women.
Hey, Julie. Hi, Savannah.
Hi, I wanted to wait a second. Yeah, I saw you mid yawn and
then I want to say hi until you're taking a full breath.
Thank you. Free recording.
You were just telling me about all the things that you have on
(00:51):
your plate, all the traveling, all the events, all the books,
all the this, all of that. And right after you did that
lengthy list, I just started to yawn.
And you thought we moved on whenyou press recorded.
Oh no, I've tired, tears in my eyes.
And thank you for waiting, but I'm here.
Yes. I'm quitting.
(01:11):
I forget about it. What?
I will never forget. Never forget.
Yeah, like you said, today's a rundown day for me.
I did get up earlier. I mean, they got up with the
dogs as they usually do. And I'm usually like, I'll go
back to bed until 11. And I was like, Nope, 9:30 I was
out and about getting my stuff done 'cause I'm like right on
(01:32):
the precipice. I know.
I see you young. I was right on the precipice of
finishing Book 3 for pre editor edits.
It's like a read through and youclean it up as best you can.
So now that's done, I'll print it.
I'll print it at work tomorrow. I'll use the office copier to
print it out and that way it'll be read for editor review.
(01:54):
And yeah, like you were saying, thank you for giving the list.
You know, Keystone's coming up, so I'll be there at my workshop
Saturday afternoon, the last slot before I may go to the gala
event. So hopefully you'll be well
attended. I look forward to seeing
everybody start of the month. I have a business trip, so I'm
going to head to New York for a few days.
(02:14):
And super secret, I'm not going to give you lots of details.
Joey, do you remember a young woman named Jennifer sometimes?
I do. I do.
The founding mother, yes. She was in charge of Cross
Breast treble all those many moons ago and she is doing well.
(02:34):
She took herself away from the limelight of podcasting and the
Cross Dress travel.com website and organizing the cruises.
Special shout out to her that wemiss and love you and I was
approached by the now organizersof Cross Dress Travel to be on a
cruise in the fall to do some workshops.
(02:55):
So that's all to give you at themoment.
All right, First of all, yes, that was a fantasy we both had
doing the cruises work in the room.
OK, so if you happen to talk to her again, I'm just saying first
of all, how much is the cruise? We'll talk later.
And second of all, you know, if you had to bring a red headed
someone on a cruise somewhere, I'm a veils.
(03:17):
Yes, I'm fortunate that slide isalready gone to Judy, who also
loves cruises and wants to be a part of the action.
So all right, she's sorry. She's my plus, so she's.
She's your plus one, but I'm just saying, if ever this
person, yes, OK, not Jennifer sometimes, but this person who
we won't say the name because I don't know and I don't want to
(03:37):
out the person should just say you know, also know you do a.
Podcast it does know hey, you never you might be looked up in
the future for other events. They want to expand beyond just
cruises. They want to do destination
things. They have all sorts of plans.
So this is just the start of something big for them and I
will give more details as they come.
(03:58):
I will be promoting it as it gets more finalized through the
next month or two so people can go ahead and sign up.
That's what I'll give you for now and hopefully more
information to. Come, all right, I'm jealous,
but I'm very, very happy for you.
You know my dreamable dream. Speaking of cruises and
Jennifer, sometimes I would liketo dig her up, find her and
(04:20):
Elizabeth and just get them on the podcast.
You know, that's the dream. That is one of the dreams we
have, many dreams. We have many dreams, but that is
the dream and I also know that it is just a dream because
people have their own timelines in life, so they.
Do they do? That would be a dream.
That would be a dream. Enough about me.
What's going on with you? I too have something that I will
(04:42):
be promoting as it gets further and further into the works and
it gets up on the website. Spoiler alert, it's a nine week
intensive femininity. I don't know if I'm calling it a
course, I don't know if I'm calling it a program, but is
basically everything I have doneover the past decade.
(05:04):
Do you believe I can say that with Fox and Hanger that will go
into my one-on-one support and my coaching with a little more
intention with some goals working from the inside out.
So that's all I can say for now,but I'm really excited and
hopefully next podcast I can share a little more because I'm
(05:24):
just aching to get it on the website and get started.
Nice. I'm way out.
Excited to hear more about it. Yeah, Speaking of Inside Out,
you know how you do it, but yourSegways are amazing.
Really. Yes.
Because the topic today is aboutInside out and it's been
something I've struggled with the understanding struggle with
(05:46):
other people's journeys and whatled them from point A to point B
and then going off to Point C inthe future.
I've come across many individuals with many different
stories and some of them are notmine.
They're not how I approached what I'm doing, which I feel was
very organic in its genesis and it's and it's blossoming into
(06:08):
who I am now. Not without the struggles
obviously, but I've heard other stories of people who had more
traumatic childhoods and whetheror not those traumas would lead
to self analysis or even leaningtowards gender diversity, even
if you never thought you would have.
(06:28):
But maybe there was something that was that spring point of a
trauma that brought us forward. So I want to talk about the
cross dressing journey as organic versus traumatic.
I did some research today because I have examples from
others that I know where they were made to dress up as a girl
(06:49):
by their sisters. And even though that simulate
doesn't all of a sudden make yougender diverse, there could have
been something there that led tothe like, Oh, I like this.
I like how this they like cover and and all this.
Breadcrumb. Yeah, crack open this thing that
you would never thought about had you not had this experience.
(07:09):
We think a trauma is abuse and violent and things that are
really offense we overcome in order to try to find ourselves.
And a lot of times it's a point in time that led you down a
different path. So what?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I look up deep in thought and
try to collect my thoughts and say something and I look up.
(07:30):
I see the bosom of a mannequin in frame with butterflies on it.
I'm like, wait. Sorry, I'm listening to you
totally. It's my ADD.
I'm really trying, you know, I'mtrying to, since I don't work at
the preschool anymore, I'm really trying to create this
corner of my bedroom to be the office of my dreams because I
(07:53):
just, I'm just trying right until I get a more formal off.
And and so as you're talking, I'm in my own little world
listening actively. OK, I have a lot to say about
this, but my ADD is just, I don't like those dark clothes or
no book showing. So I'm just going to take this
Madigan and make a nice and I still haven't figured out I had
(08:16):
this whole plan for an idea. So I've got the the rolling rack
that's underneath my bed, you know, hiding from the husband.
And I got this mannequin to recreate the butterfly mannequin
from my website. I got the freaking butterflies
over there. But I still haven't figured out
the placement in the evening. Eddie, though, that's your
(08:39):
topic. Speaking of, you have lots to
say about the topic. Yes, let's let's go to you, my
lovely Co host and hear what youhave to say on the topic in
here. Well, I think that when we think
of something like you said, whenwe think of trauma, we think of
maybe a more PTSD kind of situation where you're walking
(09:01):
through life in everyday situations and then something
happens where you're immediatelytriggered and you go back to
this trigger point from your childhood or whatever it is.
But trauma or impactful events, let's just say it's they impact
you, whether it be a painful, Ohmy God, do you see that?
(09:21):
All right, ladies and gentlemen and significant others, I just
said something really amazing and suddenly the AI generator
released these fireworks. OK, so I've tried to stay on
task. That was trying.
I don't know how that happens, but it was crazy.
It was magical. So when we think about these
(09:44):
impactful events with the cross dressing lens, these are things
like having your sister dress you up and feeling good about
it. And then that leads to today
where you are either unpacking the past, figuring out where you
got to this place, why you like cross dressing, could read you
back to that time. I worked with a client once.
(10:05):
Their mother, when they were born, rejected the fact that
they were male. And the mother decided in their
own psycho CDs that they would acknowledge this baby as a girl.
And so for the first three yearsof this biological boy's life,
they dressed them as a girl, they responded to them as
(10:26):
female. And it was very confusing for
this client. And that event directly impacted
how they came to me in terms of rediscovering, processing this
confusing early childhood, earlydevelopment thing and how it
relates to their gender queerness today.
(10:46):
So it's really interesting. And more often than not, when I
meet with clients, it starts from childhood.
When have you, when did you start dressing?
And they say, hey, I'm newbie tothis.
I don't have any. But you know, there's always a
but. And then they named the specific
moment in time or the specific series of events where they once
(11:11):
snuck in their mom's closet and they put on their heels.
They have that specific memory of the sound of the heels
clickety clacking. They have this experience where
their prom date actually let them try on a gown and was open
and helping them be full fam before they went out to the
prom. That's a kind of impactful story
(11:34):
that can influence the gender diverse person that you are
today. So totally this topic really
sits home with me because I knowI'm very aware of many of the
things that I do in relationships to where I get it
from, almost like a an OCD or whatever it is.
(11:54):
This is something that has been a part of my personality for so
long as I continue to unpack thetraumas in my life and work in
therapy. Now something like getting laid
off from a job or something that's someone having cancer
near death experience can shake those detachments to the past
and reset you and figure out OK,what is now, which is a place
(12:16):
where I really want people to get to.
OK, this is how it relates and you can connect the dogs back
there. But what's real now?
Yeah, those are my thoughts. Yeah.
And I'm doing a lot of singles therapy these days and even I
was like, I don't need therapy, but it does give you, it gives
me especially that window to thepast, like you said.
(12:39):
But like what to ask you those classic questions of how is your
parents relationship? How is your relationship with
you? What was your upbringing like,
etcetera, etcetera. And I know we have, I know and I
think we all know that memory isvery temperamental, that the
memory we have is just the memory of the memory of the
memory. We don't have the photographic
(12:59):
memory where we know the event exactly and the feelings of the
event exactly. We just have that one, the time
between the memory and now in your recall of it based on
today's lens versus your childhood lens.
That being said, when I was asked about my parents yelling
at each other and arguing about whatever the rest of us would be
(13:21):
in the next room, staying as quiet and small as possible.
And so when you think about that, that's where my conflict
avoidance comes in, where that gives me a lot of triggering
anxiety when people start getting loud and getting but you
want to be. Quiet or aggressive?
I want to avoid it. Yeah, absolutely.
So it's those type of things, anexample of something in your
(13:43):
childhood can affect you. Even today, when I'm 57 years
old, I have people at work who just talk loud, and that gives
me just a little blush of anxiety, not because they're
being aggressive, but just because they're being loud.
Yeah, I'm realizing now it's like, Oh yeah, I can see why
that's triggering me a little because of recognizing the past.
(14:05):
Now, with all that said, I'm also looking at my trains
journey, right, my CD journey inthat I start asking myself
questions because I feel I am very organic in my development.
I don't feel like there was any overt trauma that would lead me
from a normal heterocysts existence to where I am now.
So I'm like, all right, I have asister, an older sister.
(14:27):
I have a younger autistic brother.
She and I didn't play all that often together.
She's a couple years older than me.
She didn't want me around, so itwasn't like she and I were like,
let's play Barbies together. So I did get that femme
influence from her. I was very much like a mama's
boy in a lot of ways because my dad was out there like 6-7 days
(14:48):
a week working. But I also craved that paternal
influence. I wanted to throw the football
around when he was home. I want to have that relationship
with my father. So I was looking for that male
bonding side. Now, just because I didn't get
it in the way I wanted, it did not all of a sudden convert me
to more feminine pursuits because that wasn't like my mom
(15:11):
was. All right, all right, Chucky,
let's go make a basket. And with flowers for people in
my, I didn't get that influence either.
So when I look at my life and mydevelopment, I do see it very
isolated in terms of I did it onmy own in private.
I did have a lot of influence other than clothes I could
choose from. And I just developed on my own
(15:31):
and just fought the normal societal constraints and
restraints and overcoming viewpoints, etcetera, and all
the isms that come with who you are as a person.
And so if I came to this as because it was part of my
nature, not because something made this my nature.
Right. I'm going to read something to
you real quick just so we can level set as well for what could
(15:52):
be traumatic, what could cause things.
The examples of childhood traumathat could potentially
contribute to gender dysphoria include being forced to conform
to gender stereotypes, severe gender based bullying, physical
or sexual abuse related to one'sperceived gender, parental
rejection of a child's gender expression, consistent
(16:13):
misgendering, and experience of extreme emotional neglect,
particularly when tied to genderidentity.
Essentially, any traumatic experience where a child feels
deeply disconnected from their assigned gender due to societal
expectations or negative interactions with others.
That was really telling to me when I was researching this and
(16:33):
that. OK, well, if you start
disassociating from your own gender, in my eyes and my brain,
it makes complete sense while you start pursuing something
else. I feel like if you were sexually
abused as a little boy by somebody that's seen her family
or extended family, and you realize, well, they never
touched my sister in that way. And maybe you want to start
(16:55):
identifying more feminine so youcan escape the possibility that
could happen to you in the future.
Things like that are like the extreme traumatic trauma that
could cause that. Yeah.
Yeah. And that to me is trauma.
I mean, trauma is extreme and itcould happen in a second.
I was just talking to my friend Margo, who I grew up with, like
(17:16):
sisters. That's our relationship.
So when I went to high school and there was this moment that
I've talked about on the air where I showered and then I got
out. I see two panties on the bed and
I would like clean laundry. And I decided, like, I had this
inkling to just try it on, to wear it.
I knew it was edgy and I knew they weren't mine.
(17:36):
And so I did. And she came in and was like
freaked out. OK, trauma instant.
What are you doing? Oh my God, that's so gross.
What are you doing? And then immediately then
shifted to her older sister coming in and be like, you guys
are sisters, So what? And deactivated that trauma.
That being said, I remember thatthat's in my mind when I talked
(17:58):
to her today on the phone. Trauma has a way of just making
a little baby nest and and sitting there.
So I'm going to assume based on what you shared and what I know
of you as a person that you've never had that moment or else it
would be there. Accessible when apps, Yeah.
Exactly. I don't have anything unless
(18:20):
somehow I completely blocked it out of my memory.
There's nothing that I can pointto that would even be an inkling
to oh, I can see why I want to be female as a result of this
single experience or series of movements.
And yet you have so many experience as you bridge back
where this has not only been a thing for you, but you have
(18:40):
concrete examples of this all happening.
For example, when you tried a variety of different breasts on
filling up the balloons with water in the sink, having a pop,
maybe trying some bird seed. And then there your wide variety
of different ways in which you were able to add some weight to
an area of your body that was that is extremely feminine.
(19:04):
So I'm sure you have those memories and they're cozy and
they're used as places on the map.
But when it comes to trauma, it's hard to break unless you
have some serious Dr. therapy where they have you bridge back
and then you do work on a real cellular level.
It's a lot more intense. Unless you have something like
that, it's really hard. Maybe talk therapy for some, but
(19:27):
it's really hard to break that idea of your cross dressing
experience. Not being shameful, not being
closeted. You know, last episode we talked
a lot about why does the CD individual still feel like
they're need to go in the closetwhen they told their significant
other they already came out. That may be confusing for the
(19:50):
significant other. Why are they hiding?
I'm confused. That's childhood shit that goes
back even more to moments of trauma from the past.
It's not just, oh, as an adult or, you know, like, I feel like
it's deeper than simply the pastfive years or however long
(20:11):
you've kept this secret in the closet in your adulthood.
I mean, I used to literally hidein the closet as a child, like
always. Just it was my own little
private space. I'd shut the closet door and no
one would know I was in the roomor home or whatever.
And I felt very safe and secure.I used to play like Cinderella
little match girl in the shadows.
(20:33):
And so I don't know, I've been office today with in my closet
right now with the doors open, who knows?
But what do you have to say about?
Well, I want to give a couple other examples to start talking
about. Not trauma necessarily, but
discovery. I had one friend in New York who
had a previous girlfriend who wanted them to wear panties.
(20:56):
And according to them, they had no interest or thought to do it.
And so they're like, OK, you know, you're supportive of you.
Sure, we'll do this thing. And then all of a sudden it
became, oh, I love panties. I don't wear panties.
And that led to expanding on theidentity in this feminine way.
I had another friend who had that childhood, not necessarily
trauma, but the sister dressed them up as a girl and then found
(21:20):
that the father was very abusiveto him as a boy, but left the
girls alone. So then all of a sudden, there's
again that kind of disassociation of, oof, if I
just don't act like this, but I act like that I'll get through.
I'll be safer if I acted this other way.
And that God knows what that could do in your formative
(21:41):
years, but that that one is a childhood trauma and the other
one is just an opportunity that presented itself that led to a
whole different life. It was just a pivot point of,
oh, huh, I do like this. It's about discovery, it's about
repression, it's about trauma. Just the idea that we talked
about it. And again, we're talking about a
very binary way, like organic versus traumatic, that it's not
(22:04):
only those two things, it's everything in between and
beyond. But it's always been something
in my own self pursuit of knowledge and understanding of
myself, of the wise. When sometimes I get hung up on
the wise, you know that about me.
It's like, I want to know why I am the way I am because that's
all I am. And sometimes it's not as
important, but there is this little kernel of want of
(22:27):
discovery to, I don't know, maybe just rationalize that it's
OK. And I'm like 99.9% certain about
the organic nature of my diversity and that it comes from
a positive internal place. But I do not want to discount
those people out there who are listening, whose diversity came
from repression, came from trauma, came from something in a
(22:50):
childhood that gave them PTSD, gave them a reason to hide
behind this veneer as a measure of safety.
Like you in your closet, close the door and feeling safe.
That is a very apartment to metaphor for why a lot of people
dress because it's a safer environment now.
We don't live and save times right now.
But yet even with that, some people will feel much safer in
(23:13):
this feminine shield, this feminine armor that just gives
them an out to express themselves in a different way.
Whereas we talked about people who are on a journey that goes
beyond quote UN quote, the crossdressing journey went to the
transness of things. And as I always tell people,
trans is an abroad statement. We're all trans in our own way
in our on this journey. Some people just end up getting
(23:35):
off the edge of our stop, then us.
So yeah, I'm sure we could come up with other examples.
I just wanted to acknowledge that we understand that our
diversity comes from different places.
Totally. And as you're talking, an
interesting point came to my head.
And that's knowing myself, right?
So let's say you are born biological male and you have
(24:00):
very feminine features. Everyone responds, Oh, you'd be
such a pretty girl or you, whatever it is, there's that
awareness of the times that are not now where if I look feminine
or if I, my body language is feminine, like I can try to
Butch it up, but that's going tohave a certain response from
(24:20):
people. People will assume I'm gay,
right? So this is just a the nature of
our how we grew up that femininity and having feminine
soft features and called so pretty or whatever it is.
There has got to be some confusing moments with that as
you're exploring this side, you know, let's say a feminine voice
(24:41):
suddenly like, well, I want to try and address because I'm
feminine. There's also this whole you're
such a Sissy there. There's this whole culture that
bridges back to maybe the 50's, the 60s before then, where if
you act a certain way, if you'redrawn to certain things that are
more feminine, things to be drawn to, for example, painting,
(25:03):
if you're more artsy, if you're more sensitive, then you must be
gay. So now I'm bringing it back to
this time we're in, where we know that sexuality and gender
are two different things. We're all just still trying to
learn, that included. We're still trying to wrap our
head around that and the fact that we don't as a culture and
society say that so much anymore.
(25:26):
Especially, I mean, I'm in California, so I'm just speaking
for my state. If someone is more feminine, the
woke individuals are not going to say, oh, they must be gay.
At least me the the people that aren't their parents, they're
going to instantly go to. I wonder if they're trans.
You know the thing in the parental brain that is of now,
if that makes sense. No it.
Does. Yeah, absolutely as.
(25:47):
We're talking it, we're having this conversation and we're
thinking about the past and we're thinking about different
moments. I also want to put in the whole
sexuality piece to it and what little boys might have thought
back then and how confusing it must have been to say, well, I
like I like girls, but and I'm aboy.
I'm not responding to men in that way.
(26:08):
It's just a lot to unpack to be a child.
Yes, yeah, when your. Parents and friends, and not
your friends, but your parents, friends and adults.
And everybody's telling you you're a certain way because of
how you look. And you only know as a child the
binary because nobody is teaching you diversity at that
age. So in your formative years as
(26:28):
somebody saying, oh, you're so prissy, oh, you'll be so cute as
a girl, 'cause your long hair and your delicate features as a
boy, all of a sudden you start being instilled with this idea
that you must need to be this other way, because the other way
is a stereotype that's accepted,quote UN quote.
And all of a sudden you start being you people are telling you
that you should be a different way.
(26:50):
So yeah, you're become very confused by, but I don't feel
that way. Well, yeah, I must, because look
at how you look and look at whatyou do, right?
Right. So there's butching ups and the
idea we know several trans individuals that have beefed up
that literally went into the service to get this hyper
masculinity just forced upon them.
(27:12):
And to me it goes back to good survival.
So there's a lot of homosexual guys, a lot of cross dressing
individual genderqueer, a lot oftrans women that in high school
they needed to beef up. They decided to be the main
bully and, quote, leader of the pack to just protect themselves.
(27:34):
Yeah, it's so crazy when I thinkback to significant others and
talking to significant others and talking to individuals that
were later in life, crossdressers who came out,
let's say they've been married for 40 years and they just tell
their significant other and or there's a part of the story that
usually finds his way into my eardrums and that, oh, I thought
(27:56):
you were going to say you were gay.
Like that's another angle of it where they're like, well, I
thought you were just so sensitive.
And so, you know, like it's not as common as the shock and the
disassociation with what this means and all that.
But there is occasionally that line that was like, because you
were so sensitive, because you were I was more of the the wife,
the biological woman is more of the the.
(28:17):
Breadwinner and the Yeah. And like the scientific my or
like the less sensitive one, or,you know, however you want to
scramble the gender stereotypes and it's.
Funny you say that because I have examples here and it's all
about repression. OK, So you know, you talk about
people like, oh, I thought you were gay because you're
sensitive, but you took on a very masculine identity to move
(28:40):
forward to get married, married,have the kids, have that way.
So I got some examples here. A young boy constantly mocked
for liking girly activities likedancing, leading to a feeling of
alienation of his male identity.A girl repeatedly told by her
father that she should act more like a girl and be more
submissive, causing an internal conflict about her gender
(29:01):
expression. A transgender child experiencing
severe bullying at school due totheir gender nonconformity,
leading to a desire to fiscally transition to align with her
internal identity. A child raised in a highly
religious household where their gender identity is viewed as
sinful, causing significant emotional distress.
And then we have to go back to what we talked about before.
(29:22):
A child who was sexually abused by a family member who used
their gender as a means of control, leading to a deep sense
of violation and a desire to disassociate from their assigned
sex. So those are a couple examples
of what could be. And so we talked about
repressive nature while my family because I kept a hidden,
I didn't feel repressed in that way specifically.
(29:45):
But you've heard me talk about that conversation of overhearing
my parents talk about the neighbor kid of like he's
probably gay and talked about a very negative way.
I'm like, let me pumpkin brakes and never talking to you about
what I got going on exactly. Is.
All these chain links of repression put upon us as
children that say, hey, if I hide it well enough, I'll go to
(30:06):
the military service so I can masculine it up enough to have
this femininity beaten out of meby those people who know so how
to do it. And all the sudden you spend
years trying to conform only to rediscover at some breaking
point that was never the case. And all you did was spend the
lifetime to that moment trying to cover up the truth.
(30:27):
And once you allow that truth tobecome your truth, all of a
sudden everybody is like, Oh my God, I didn't know.
You're just doing what trendy now is like.
Now this has been me for 20 years.
I just spent a lifetime hiding it because I wasn't brave enough
to be who I am in my own body ormy own mind.
But yeah, we talked about repression.
We talked about trauma, PTSD, all the things that comes with
(30:49):
the brain trying to protect us. Yeah.
And be safe and not be noticed in a negative way by others.
You don't want to be the prey. You know the human speech is
maybe the top of the the predator food chain.
But ma'am, when you feel like you're still being hunted,
that's what you do. All you can do to make sure
you're safe. Yep, Yeah, Wow.
Yeah, this episode definitely turns me on an emotional
(31:13):
intelligence level. So I'm like, wow, yeah.
It's so much. So much goes into the cross
dressing experience beyond expression.
It's really deep. And that's how we have managed
to show up and continuously unpack all the themes that come
with this. It's not as simple as male to
(31:35):
female transformation. It's generally it's not, it's a
huge part of it. And there's so much else, so
much else. And I think that's why when I
first received your book, beyondjust, I don't even think we
record our first episode, but I got the book.
I remember where I was, I was outside on one of those outdoor
(31:58):
furniture pieces, a chair, and Iwas reading your book and I was
like saying out loud, I was like, thank you, thank you.
Like I was just screaming out loud because I'm like, this is
what I needed. This is what I needed because I
came from a background where cross dressing was a kink and I
knew there was more, but I didn't have the context.
(32:18):
So having your book, it literally laid everything out
for me to be like, this is a part of my work.
This is how I show up for my business and help with clothes.
So when people came to me and they basically saying I want to
look intentional. And that made sense to me.
I don't want to look, you know, a cheap Halloween costume.
I want to wear actual clothes. I want to feel like a human in
(32:40):
this part of me, in who I am. So, yeah.
So thanks to your book and the podcast, there's so many more
resources out there for people to hang their hat on when it
comes to their individual journey.
Because if you don't have well informed information, all you
have is your confused mind and nowhere to go and just are lost.
(33:01):
So I'm extremely grateful. Thank you.
For that, that was amazing. The last thing I want to say is
that the physical presentation is really the last thing in my
view. It comes from your head and
comes from your heart about who you are and what your needs are
to create that physical outgoingpresentation in understanding
(33:25):
your gender. But that's just the last stop.
That's just the last thing that occurs, and it's all coming from
what's in your mind and what's in your heart.
I will forever from this point forward say talk therapy just
for your own betterment, not because it may be anything you
feel is wrong with you, but justtalking to somebody who has some
expertise to give you, like you said with a book, give you just
(33:46):
a different perspective, enough to be like, Oh yes, yes, that's
what I needed to now continue myown thinking and go forward.
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate that you said that.
And I do remember that moment waiting around the lounge chair
outside talking about that moment of for something that you
knew was missing, but you just didn't have that context for
(34:08):
where to put that slot in. So thank you for that, yeah.
And you talk about working from the inside out and that's
definitely been my guiding lightwhen it comes to creating this
femininity program that we're going to spend 3 weeks just
working from the inside. And then that expression piece,
the outer stuff is at the end. So totally what you said it it,
(34:31):
it comes from working from the inside out.
It made me start somewhere with some pieces that cue you in
terms of your expression or touching something silky or
whatever it is. But it definitely is an inside
out journey when you're able to really be in a place where you
can unpack the stuff and figure out who you are as it relates to
this. So thank you for this topic.
(34:53):
It was really, oh, thank you, really beautiful.
I have a bunch of upcoming episode ideas that I got from
Leanne while she was here visiting.
And I was just like talking. And I was like, oh, I got to
write that down. Yeah, write down a bunch of
stuff that I will be bringing toyou in the next weeks because
yeah, just thinking about the journey differently that I
(35:14):
haven't really put that punctuation to.
So yeah, thank you to her, thankyou to you.
Thank you for being my lovely Cohost and earned life on this
journey that we call cross dressing and friendship.
Yes. Totally.
So with all that you just shared, I think our listeners
are in for a real treat in 2025 in terms of content and topics
(35:39):
that really ring true. So I'm excited for that as well.
And we love you, dear listeners,and we are here because of you.
We are showing up every week because of you.
You are evidence that it's not just a fringe, a fringe on the
(35:59):
trans world that we live in, or you're not just.
Am I part of the LGBTQIA? Yeah, we are.
OK. We are.
We're here. We're here.
We're gender queer. Forget about it.
OK? And bye for now.
Until next time, you can find meon Facebook at Savannah Hawk or
(36:25):
at Living with Cross Dressing and on Instagram at Savannah
Hawk. Remember, that's HAUK and to
learn more, go to my website livingwithcrossdressing.com.
And you can find me on Instagramand Facebook at Fox and Hanger
or at Julie MTF Style, as well as on our website at
foxandhanger.com. Julie, it's your moment, the
(36:51):
Fox. And the Phoenix Podcast uses
Spotify for creators. Copyright 2025.
Yes, nailed it.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!