Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
You're listening to the Fox and the Phoenix podcast
Understanding the Feminine CrossDressing 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.
(00:28):
And I'm Julie Rubenstein, proud ally and Co founder of Fox and
hanger.com, a feminine styling and life coaching service for
cross dressers and transgender women.
Hi, Savannah. Well, hello, Miss Rubenstein,
Miss Julie, if you're nasty, what?
Yes, yes. Tis I Julie Rubenstein, not
(00:50):
Stein, which is a personal preference.
I guess I can pull off both, butabsolutely.
And was it Young Frankenstein like Frankenstein?
I don't remember that, but it makes it seem like Frankenstein
is a Jewish last name, which it totally is.
So that's why it's. There you go, you do you.
(01:10):
Nobody tell you how to say your name.
All right, Well, here we are, and I am freshly waxed.
I am freshly back from my appointment.
It's been too long. It's been a little hairy, I got
to tell you. But we are here on a Tuesday
evening, which an episode will be going out tomorrow, but we're
like, not even recording on Sunday.
(01:31):
We're recording on Wednesday andThursdays and Tuesdays.
We're getting crazy y'all. I know, I know.
It's just, it's everything and nothing because our listeners
won't ever really know. Don't ever.
They'll know now because we're telling them.
But like in the big picture, it's all Wednesday.
Yeah, absolutely. And other than my full day of
(01:55):
work and go and see Cara and gethim out full body wax feeling
awesome. I tell you what, I can't tell
you the amazing feeling post waxthat I have.
Highly recommended. Hey, there's some pain involved.
Don't get me wrong, I'm never going to say there isn't, but
it's worth it, at least in my case, in my eyes.
Anything new from you before we jump right in?
(02:18):
I just had a great day. I had a lookbook consultation
with someone from Europe. I saw your Facebook story.
Yep, you saw that. I'm like by the time this
episode airs guarantee I will have found something to be
self-conscious about and deletedthem.
Oh. Don't do it.
Don't. You do that's.
So cute. So yeah, I did that and then I
(02:41):
had another consultation that was also very exciting.
A professional poker player. I don't know just the duality of
the different types of people I got to meet as well as I'm
working on a decades look book, which is super fun and super.
It's got to be right before I send it out.
(03:04):
Yeah, finally I got that Y2K down right because back in 2000,
let's just say they had a lot ofbad fashion.
I. Know what you should have done.
Y2K should have been a case of water.
A hazmat suit? Oh yeah, really?
With a belt to cinch it in? That would have been your Y2K
look. Yeah, and Julie's virginity card
(03:26):
that is checked off because I grabbed the first schmo at the
party because I didn't want to die a virgin.
I'm serious. It's not like I was saving it
for something sacred. I was a little anxious for the
pain, but really, I did not wantthe world to end as a virgin.
So. You know what?
That's my Y2K story, sticking toit.
(03:46):
Love it, love it. We.
Do talking about not wanting to die a virgin.
No, that's no segue. I will tell you there is some
angst involved. So if we can channel your angst
of not wanting to hit Y2K, the year 2000 of virgin in case
world ended. I similarly or not similarly at
(04:09):
all, had a little bit of AI, don't know a crisis, if you
will. And that crisis is the fact that
there was a post and let me pullsaid post up.
Tone has a Community Board on Facebook and I see it everyday,
people posting on it like, hey, why is this highway backed up?
(04:30):
What's going on? There was a fire burn, all sorts
of local things happening. And so this day in particular,
somebody said I'm starting a podcast and it's LGBT.
If I have somebody out there that could help me with the
technology, I would appreciate it.
I have bought just about everything you need for a
podcast. And so I saw that going, oh,
(04:51):
wait, somebody who's doing a L GB TU podcast here in the
upstate of South Carolina. Wah wah, wah, wah, that's
awesome. I want to reach out.
And so at this point, we start the dilemma in the crises, the
existential crisis, if you will,of what do I do now?
(05:11):
Do I want to expose myself in that way by commenting on the
post? Because there was only like 2
comments at that time and they were benign, nothing
problematic. Or you know what, you know what
I'm going to do, I'm just going to respond to that person by
messenger privately. So what I did, I did that.
And then about 20 minutes later,I'm like, I will not hide myself
(05:36):
away. The world.
So I had this crisis and I wouldjust going to copy paste the
private message to the comment section of the post and I said
ask Savannah Hawk. I Co host and engineer the fox
and the famous podcast. Let me know what questions you
have. I got a few thumbs up.
(05:56):
I got a few hearts. And then a person who will
remain nameless says in responseto my comment.
Savannah Hawk, that's cool of you to help bro now.
Bro was in all caps by the way. It was.
It was, and by the time I saw that, it had four laughing
(06:17):
emojis and one that was a mad emoji.
And now I'm in my second crisis of the day because I'm like, I
knew this was going to happen. I knew it.
I knew that if I put myself out there, I was going to invite
trolling in some way. So I agonized over it and I
spoke to my Co worker and friendEmily at work and said, can you
(06:38):
bleed this crap? I was like, what do you think I
should do because I'm having a crisis here?
And so we talked about it. She said you should just laugh
at it too. And I'm like, you know what?
Super smart. So I also emoji laughed at their
comment. And then as I'm thinking and
we're talking, I was like, you know what, I will do?
I have to respond in some way, but I'm not going to go toe to
toe, troll to troll ideology, ideology.
(07:02):
Fake sis or whatever. Like yeah.
Oh yeah. Oh.
Man, I need to think about that.So what I So what I did is I
responded to them directly and Isaid it's the Christian thing to
do, so happy to assist. Wait, let me just, let me just
get my tits in order for this. OK.
You responded to the hate with it's the Christian thing to do.
(07:25):
Yep, and happy to help. Amazing.
It's amazing. Because it works on so many
levels. So many levels.
I'm getting my dig in without mehaving to go toe to toe with you
because it's almost. Dude, you ought to be ashamed of
yourself for what you said because as a Christian, it's the
right thing to do. I put them in a place without
(07:45):
doing much effort, not much heavy lifting.
And that my dear, is a genesis for this topic.
Wow, wow. Wow, wow, wow.
What in the biblical beep, beep,beep beep.
I know you, if you can bring in the relig or the brick JC, you
do so with joy and a little pinkin your cheeks.
(08:07):
I see you're turning flush with joy, so I love that for you.
I have one question. So did the person that said the
bro thing. Were they the one that did the
post? No, no, this is just somebody
commenting, yeah. OK, because that is its own
separate podcast in itself aboutthe LGBT not accepting trans.
(08:28):
You know, that's a whole episodefor of course that is real and
it happens, but that's not what we're talking about.
No, we're talking about the bevyof emotional range I had just in
this opening salvo of what to dowith the responding to the
original post. What to do to respond to this
(08:50):
person? How to handle myself?
The fact that I was mad at myself for even thinking that I
had to hide myself by private messaging versus throwing it in
the comments. Because I will tell you this, my
comment in the response to my comment was the tame is trolling
of the entire set of comments that eventually reared us ugly
(09:11):
head. A lot of people was like, ask
about why do they have to put inthat in it?
Why are people allowed to throw hate up on here?
Where's the admins on this account?
It went on and on and on. And mine was just the most timid
of all that was said. Thank God.
Yeah, it worked better with moredivisive language.
Then I'm going to just see if I can poke the bear a little bit.
(09:31):
So what I want to talk about is trolling, how to react to them,
and two, the fact of having thatanxiety about even posting.
And this kind of goes back to what you said earlier and goes
back to our previous episode about you got some negative
comments on a post and you felt you just wanted to delete the
whole thing. Oh yeah, Like I'm a I'm very
(09:52):
sensitive. I'm very reactive.
Like I said at the start of thisepisode, the chances of that
video still being up when this episode airs are are very slim
because it's vulnerable as shit for me.
I don't have a lot of practice at it.
And I was using a moment of sheer euphoric joy for the work
(10:13):
that I do and just using that asmy platform to do this thing
that is important and that's being visible and that's talking
and that's sharing and that's putting yourself out there.
And when you do that, it involves a level of
vulnerability that sometimes is covered by self esteem, trans
(10:34):
love, the purpose, the work. As you're doing the video right,
you're not really thinking of any of this, but you're putting
yourself out there. So as soon as there's any
comment that is remotely like anytime I see a negative comment
on an episode we do or whatever it is, it is very rare.
I don't know if you go through it before I see it, but for me,
(10:57):
I've been fairly insulated in terms of hate comments for both
Fox and Hanger and the Fox in the Phoenix podcast.
But I am very reactive. I don't have the mindfulness.
I mean, it speaks to us as personality types.
Like, I'm very reactive. You're very mindful about
wondering and questioning. So I understand why our
(11:18):
responses are very different. Where you took this on a whole
journey. And I was just like, delete, Oh
my God, delete. You know, yeah, being afraid to
post something is a real thing. And then if you're in a
vulnerable situation, like beinga trans woman, even more
vulnerable trans women of color,you're putting yourself out
there and you get hate. It's just like you're competing
(11:41):
with that inner warrior and thatinner scared inner child that's
just like, make it go away, you know?
And I had the added bonus of it being my hometown Facebook
community group where I put myself out there close to home,
which was another facet of the anxiety I was having.
(12:02):
I love what you said because it does, it is so vulnerable and
it's ironically vulnerable for the people trying to do the
right thing and stand up for themselves and be of equity in
the world, in society. So from it's a weird, a weird
kind of dichotomy of we try to post or we try to hold our own
(12:23):
and we feel shame. We feel we're less than, we feel
vulnerable. Conversely, the people who are
peoples who are doing this to usand to others and who are
trolling, they got a whole otherset of rules they're living by
but yet hiding vulnerability. You're presenting that warrior
esque persona and you're fighting that inner scared child
(12:46):
that wants to take it all back. Take it all back.
I want to take it all back. This is my time down here and
Goonies. Goonies reference the idea that
we pause because we don't want to open ourselves up to this
crap to begin with. It's like, I don't really have
honestly time for it. It's just it's work and it's
vulnerability and it's opening your heart up to deal with all
(13:09):
the anxiety. But on the opposite side of
that, the trollers themselves, they got their whole thing going
on of they don't want to be vulnerable, so they do it online
because it's easier to hide behind their social media
handle. Their name might be their name,
but they're throwing shit out there in the post like Wild West
(13:29):
style because it makes them feelbig, It makes them feel
important. They're projecting their own
insecurities on us on the post. They're trying to provoke, and
that was the one thing I really struggled with when they said
it. And again, super tame as a
trolling dig, I felt they were trying to provoke me to say
(13:51):
something back and start this whole discourse of he said, she
said, and who's going to get theupper hand?
And I wasn't going to fall for that, which is why I went with
the it's a Christian thing to dobecause it's like giving
somebody a smile. We're going to go from there,
right? Right, right.
It reminds me so much as I'm listening to you.
(14:12):
It reminds me so much of what happened after you gave your
first Ted talk and it was published and I was just don't
read the comments. And I don't know if I said it,
if you, I mean, you'll have to remind me of this, but I don't
know if it was too late. You already did.
Too late it was too. Late.
Oh God, yeah, you're. Like read comics.
I'm like, Oh yeah, no, I'm done.I've read them all and you're
(14:36):
300 at the time. Right.
And your theory was, and I understand this, there's nothing
that people can say that I haven't said to myself or
whatever you went in with as your armor.
And after you read the comments,especially the comments, I'm
going to do with body image because why wouldn't you?
You're putting your body out there, literally putting your
(14:58):
body out there when you had mentioned to the world and the
metaspheres that you never post full body shots and that you're
self-conscious and this is a rare one or this is or you'll
never see it. And then to put yourself on a
giant stage in a body professional dress doing the
(15:21):
damn thing. I mean, it's just, it's almost
like if you could survive that, you can survive anything.
And yet it's so easy to forget that really extreme situation
that you put yourself in. Because once we make it through
that mountain, we're just mountain climbing until the next
one and we forget. We forget that.
(15:42):
Wow, if I face that, why am I sobothered by that?
No, because we don't utilize allthe places that we've grown all
the time and compare and contrast.
We live in what's called real time, which means we have real
human responses. We're triggered.
There's trauma. As podcasters, we can sit on our
(16:03):
mics and just not literally, butwe can say as we want, we need
to look past the hate. We need to just come together
right now. But that's not what we're
talking about. We're talking about the
vulnerability aspect and that whole mind circus that goes in
(16:24):
our head both right before we post something vulnerable and
then after if it's not received with that dopamine hit with
that. Like or sometimes even for me,
especially on my most insecure days, posting something super
vulnerable, whether it be in writing or a story I tell,
(16:44):
whatever it is when I put my artout there, if there's not any
likes in like in like a fucking hour span.
I mean, I'd like to think that this was me when I was just a
baby, just a baby fox and hangerowner, just a baby.
But really on my most insecure day, growth or not, I will take
that down and be like, well, it must not have reached the masses
(17:06):
or I must not be good enough. They don't like me.
Yeah, that's that's a lot. I feel for you for having that
anxiety because you are amazing.You are all that.
Your work is tremendous. So just because you didn't get X
number of likes as a result of your posting is not indicative
(17:29):
of your validation of who you are.
It's a person which is akin to what I was wrestling with for
myself, that I'm worthwhile. I can put myself out there now.
I sent the message by private messenger.
I did ADMI did the post in the comment and I have not heard
back from that person and I was like, oh, that's disappointing.
(17:49):
I put myself out there. I was hoping they would connect
and they didn't. And that's also it needs to be
OK, right. I wasn't doing it like to
self-serve. Oh, I'm this big person is big
wheel and deal and I can help you in.
I'm doing you a favor now. We started looking at things
like that then, and when they don't respond, they're like, Oh
(18:10):
my God, you're Savannah Hawk from the Fox and the biggest
podcast then, you know, what areyou doing?
Why are you doing? It right, right.
And that's the drug of it. That's the game, that's the
trick, that's the trap. That's however you want to look
at it. For example, I'm posting my
femme self in this dress and it gets 20 likes versus the 200
(18:34):
likes I got when I wore this different dress.
I'm going to interpret it that that dress does not look at good
as the 200 dress and so I'm going to use that as my currency
when I figure out my own unique self-expression.
What's wrong with that sentence I just said?
Everything. You know what I mean?
Mine was when I did my boudoir shoot and I was so proud of my
(18:56):
other pictures. I came back and I posted on
Instagram. I didn't get any more likes for
those posts back then than I didwith just me taking a selfie
shot and I was very disappointed.
I'm like Oh my God, this is super sexy, super vulnerable,
feeling so feminine and yet nobody cared.
Right. And that's the Realty when it
(19:17):
comes to social media. And it's true blessings for the
trans community, for this community we live in.
And it's true icky, gross stuff,you know what I mean?
And I want to say it's like a trans thing, but it's a people
thing. It's anyone who puts themselves
out there. Social media is meant to make us
(19:39):
feel bad in a way, right? And I want to say that blanket
statement lightly because if there's something that this
beautiful, thriving community has taught me, it's how to use
social media in a way that has you connect with community in
such a way that you don't feel alone or you feel validated for
(19:59):
your feminine self in a way thatyou don't get to do when you're
at home. Pluses and minuses.
Pluses and minuses. Oh.
Absolutely. Like I said, vulnerability.
There is the kind of gamification of social media
where it's all about the reward,all about the mean, all about
the love and validation. And if you don't get it, then
(20:21):
you don't walk away from it neutral.
You walk away depressed because you're chasing that thing.
So yeah, very, very careful building community, having
community, knowing you're not alone, interacting with people
around the country, around the world, knowing that there are
similar stories to yours. Absolutely, all positive things.
(20:42):
And that's how I've built a lot of my friend group is through
social media. Absolutely.
And also the other part is true too, which is if you put
yourself out there, you got to have a little bit of armor built
up, a little bit of Teflon. Don't let the trolls get you
down because at the end of the day, they're just projecting
their own insecurities on you. Again, just trolling to get a
(21:03):
rise out of you. Whatever you're doing, it's
going against your belief systemor concept.
So of course they got praying out there about how wrong you
are, which again, who's right, who's wrong?
No such thing. And the one thing I wanted to
hit on that's just a touch of research on this and I found
because I'm like, why do trolls troll?
Why do people people let people be people?
(21:24):
Why trolls be trolling? Thing that I read, what I
thought was super interesting isthat when you're behind your
computer screen and you're not out in the world, you're just
sitting in your office or on your phone in the dark.
Just look at me. I'm going to say this thing.
What I found is when you don't have a face to face or a like
(21:45):
you and I right now, we are looking at each other.
I can see your expressions. I see you're smiling, I see your
reactions. There's a level of empathy, like
human empathy, that is diminished by doing things in
isolation. I could be a lot more empathetic
a person or this person who comments to me could be very
more empathetic. If I were to meet that person at
(22:06):
Starbucks, he probably wouldn't say what he said because we
wouldn't be as cocky about it, no pun intended. 2/2 he might be
a little more socio demure because he knows it's not cool
what he's doing. And three, he might just be a
little more compassionate. Like true human consequence to
(22:27):
your actions. And so I think one thing that
separates me from maybe a few others, and like you said, the
Ted X that had all the negative comments were off the bat, by
the way, 105,000 views on Ted X Love it.
And I actually was starting to look at the comments too.
So I'm going to respond to some of those just for people who are
supportive. The point I was making was it's
(22:51):
important to keep empathy in ourlives.
It's important to keep that empathy both in person and from
afar, in our writing, in what wesay, in what we do, regardless
of the fact that it happens to be on social media.
And the person on the other sideof the screen is not somebody we
know or can see or can respond to in a real, true human way.
(23:12):
So I think that like people likeyou and me, we are empathetic,
overly empathetic, overly vulnerable, overly trying to do
the right thing. And I think in that way, it's
super, super important to know why other people do what they
do. And we have to be understanding.
We don't agree with it, but I think if we understand their
motives, we can react quote UN quote in in a way that's good
(23:34):
for us, healthy for us, and alsode escalating and apathetic to
them. Yeah, and I think when we're
talking about entering a commentsection verse a personal post
that we may put out, when we think about giving support in a
comment section, right, You needto go in with a certain level of
armor. If you're in the ocean, you're
(23:56):
going to put on a life preserver.
If you were to comment on something trans related,
whatever related it is, it wouldbe akin to a safety vest.
If you wrote your comment, set it free, and then didn't go
back. Even if you see that little
(24:17):
number one appear at so and so like your comment, whatever it
is, use that as a marker for yourself.
So once you see at the top that they responded to your comment
or they liked your comment or how it was received, that's
another checkpoint for safety. Wondering should I enter the
wild ocean, right? Or should I just let it be?
(24:40):
That is another safety checkpoint.
Because if you return to the feed and enter your comment
section and suddenly you have about 5 other comments and
sometimes the comments have counter comments and don't like
your comments. And suddenly you'd be drowned in
this ocean of conflict and opinions and dysphoria and
(25:01):
prejudice and all all this kind of stuff.
And suddenly you're like, I can't breathe.
What was my original intention? Your original intention was to
add support. So if I could recommend
something, it's to just write your comment and then back off
and don't go back into the wild ocean unless you're prepared
(25:21):
with your safety goggles and allthis kind of stuff.
Because the group mentality in acomment thread, especially when
it's an LGBTQ group, it's a trans group, whatever it is,
it's very sensitive. In case it's very sensitive.
(25:42):
So just if you're in there to offer support, offer your
support and then send them on their way.
Great, it's hard to deal in combat.
Mob mentality. It is and you just become a
little dwindling comment and we're like, wait, what I meant
to say was no, what I didn't saywas that's wholly different than
(26:04):
posting something on behalf of yourself that may be, you know,
subject to comments that you trolling and all that.
And but you own it at the moment.
And then if it receives too muchhate that you can't deal with,
you just you can easily swipe right or whatever it is and just
trash it. Once you're in that thread, it's
(26:26):
very hard to get out of that wild ocean.
No, it's a great metaphor or analogy, can't remember which
because it is like drowning under the weight actually
without a like preserver, like trying to tread water and just
finding yourself just covered by.
Spitting ocean out. After wave after wave, yeah.
Then trying to spit it all out and try to to preserve your
(26:49):
position of what you're trying to say.
What was I saying? And then suddenly you're way out
there in the ocean, flailing your arms about, trying your
hardest to see the jetty, the rocks which represent that
original statement. And you're just so in some
different minutiae, and it took a wrong turn.
And you're just like, wait, whatwas the original combat?
(27:09):
What did I say? Yeah.
Just know what? Yeah, know what you're getting
into, and this is for you, Joey.Be proud of your post.
Be proud of what you're saying. And if it's your post, you have
every right to be like, I'm going to delete this comment or
I'm going to hide this comment. I'm going to block this person.
You have every right to do it. But sometimes, sometimes it's
(27:31):
good to let the garden grow and let those people who are going
to respond to them do the work for you.
I think we talked about this last week.
Let our followers do the responding.
It's not your job to defend yourpost.
It's your job to create the content that brings us all
together. And if somebody else wants to go
off the rails and say something stupid, guarantee you at some
(27:53):
point somebody's going to get your back and be like, get off
this feed. You're an idiot.
Trust me, they will be spotlighted at some point.
You. Said that to me, but like I am
such a protector of our listeners that for me, I see it
as the lifeguards duty to swim out there and deactivate those
(28:15):
like just immediately get rid ofthem.
And as soon as I did, I was like, Savannah's going to be
mad. Because to me that is like you
have today fresh off the grill, so fresh off the griddle of
topic deliciousness to unpack and unfold and flip in all its
different ways and figure out how to create understanding with
(28:37):
that. But I just couldn't.
I couldn't even wait a second. I'm like, Oh my God, delete,
delete. You know, like.
I, I understand, I understand the vulnerability like we've
been talking about, just a matter of being OK with what
you're providing to the community, what you're posting.
Again, you have control over thenarrative if you choose to
(28:58):
delete comments to the post, butsometimes I think that the post
is important to stay because it is the message as what you're
trying to get out there, regardless of the people trying
to bring you down. But anyway, that's personal
choice. You do you.
I did think that this was, I washaving this little, this little
bit of crisis about posting or not posting privately or
(29:19):
publicly responding, not responding.
And I shouldn't have to put thismuch effort into this kind of
thing. This should be an easy thing to
do. You do it, it's done, you move
on. But yet there was a lot of steps
along the way. Rice struggled.
So super interesting and like I said, I like to dissect the
(29:40):
reasons why. And here we are with a nice
little funny podcast app. Yeah, I think that it's very
multi layered. I think that a lot of our
listeners can relate, I think so, to several different
concepts and fears and phobias that we brought up today around
posting and putting yourself outthere, wanting to be an active
(30:03):
community member. And sometimes being an active
community member means not doinganything, not commenting, just
holding loving space for these people and just taking deep
breaths and just shut down your phone and then have a sip of
water and look around at the world because the world outside
(30:25):
your phone is waiting for you and hasn't gone anywhere.
So yeah, thank you for this topic.
It's juicy and I love you. I love you too so.
With that in mind, as Julie loves to say, and I totally
agree with her, yeah, Wednesdays.
Look out for us on Wednesdays, Yeah.
And if somehow we're skipping a week, go back to old episodes.
(30:49):
Sometimes we'd like to give you a little bit of breathing room
so you can catch up. That's all I'm saying.
Totally. Or maybe re listen.
Yeah. But yeah, we've we're consistent
except, except for when we're not.
On that note, what's something that is consistent about us?
How many? Our extra You ready?
(31:09):
Bye for now. Until next time, you can find me
on Facebook at Savannah Hawk or 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 Instagram
(31:31):
and Facebook at Fox and Hangar. We're at Julie MTF Style as well
as on our website at foxandhangar.com.
Julie, it's your moment. The Fox and the Phoenix podcast
uses Spotify for creators. Copyright 2025.
(31:52):
Yes, nailed it.