July 30, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode, Savannah asks Julie something important. She asks her cohost the pressing question of, "How do you know when your authenticity is actually authentic?" With so many concerned conservatives telling us our kids are all becoming queer because its a fad and trendy, or so many of us blindly believing that we must follow a certain avenue of gender expansiveness based on what other, more "Knowledgeable" trans folx tell us, Savannah and Julie delve into the hows for best understanding your own epic journey.
-----
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
cross dressers and transgender women.
Hey, Julie. Hi, Savannah, I'll ring you.
I'm good. That's it.
No, I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm just a little. Oh, Dre, did you ever have that
experience? When you get into a show and
(00:50):
it's like the binge, it goes a little too far, right?
And then suddenly it's the equivalent of not brushing your
teeth for a while where you feellike you have fur on your teeth.
I feel like I have fur on my eyeballs.
Yeah, I was in that kind of situation with you Don't know
it, but I love it. The queer ultimatum.
(01:12):
Please explain. So originally The Ultimatum,
it's a dating show essentially on Netflix.
It's addictive and it's based onNick Lachey, Jessica Simpson's
former husband, and Vanessa, I forget her name.
And basically the two of them are dating, We're dating.
(01:33):
And then they get a certain point where she wants him to put
a ring on it or a commitment andhe's like in 98° or maybe he
wasn't, but she's I'm out of here if you don't commit.
And he's like, OK, I'll commit. Anywho, the show is based on
that. And it's one of these things
where they have a bunch of couples enter the house and
there's a long table and one of the members of the the couple
(01:57):
issues the ultimatum and says, you know, I'm leaving you if you
don't put a ring on it. And the other one is the one who
receives the ultimatum, OK. And then they mix them up, match
them up, they all date each other.
They pair off with their new fake someone and they live for
three weeks. And then it's all this drama,
OK, which I'm just like, all right, heteronormative cyst,
(02:19):
this is boring. But then they came out with a
queer ultimatum, which is very tantalizing to the eyes.
If you must know, the first one was last year or the year
before. Either way, it was much more
interesting than this one. But this one's got the long
table discussion where they all talk it out.
(02:41):
So it's very addicting. There's high drama and I just
loved it and I watched it so much.
I was so invested in it. And my eyes are all bleeding
over and getting all gooey. And then I stopped eating and
then I stopped really sleeping on the schedule.
And then I just go from being a very productive person to
(03:03):
chasing the episode. Chasing the episode.
Oh, I think I'll cancel this exercise class and stay up just
a little later. OK, And now what do they do?
They blue balls me. OK?
I get through a certain amount of stuff, and then they stop me.
They stop me at the most riveting part, when you're going
to find out if the couples are going to be together and like,
sorry, you have to wait until Wednesday.
(03:25):
Oh, got it, got it. Now I understand.
So when you understand for my. I understand the show.
As soon as you explain to them, I'm like, Oh yeah, I had heard
of that. And two, This is why I don't
typically watch series until they're complete or seasons
complete. So yeah.
So we don't run into that like Blue Balling, if you will.
(03:46):
I am working on two shows that Iknow have complete seasons. 1 is
Blind Spot from NBC. It's on Season 5.
And I was doing the classic. Let me just watch one more one.
It's always watching 4 episodes,5 episodes a night.
Not good. That's a little much.
That's a little much. Let's keep you up too late.
And then when I said, you know what, that's a little too much
(04:07):
of that and I'm getting bored and I go and I'm watching Poker
Face. Oh, I love it.
Yeah, that one. I just finished Season 1, which
is pretty fun. I will say.
It's like, man, if that's your real voice, that's gotta be
rough. It is.
I heard an interview with her last night with Amy Poehler.
No, I love her. I'm kind of like her.
(04:27):
Ish, right? All right, fun.
I'm not. But if I was a different person
with her clothes and her background, I would totally be
her. All right, go ahead.
OK. No, that's it.
I, it's just, you know, her voices are unique and sometimes
can be, I don't know, a little distracting from the story.
I'm not saying it needs to be something else, but it's just
(04:48):
sometimes a little too much for me.
But I have been enjoying the storytelling on Season 1 of
Poker Face. I just finished, so now I'll
start Season 2 when it starts upversus other shows where I
watched the episode as soon as it airs and then like you said,
now you got to wait a week for it to come up with the next one.
So yeah, I, I both are true. As we always say, both can be
true at the same time. And both can be true.
(05:10):
And the fact that I don't have HBO right now, but I'm going to
get it someday, right? Someday.
And so right now I have so many shows that have completed, as
well as so many shows that are in the height and heart of their
season so that when I do get HBO, it's going to be like,
don't call me for at least a year.
OK. What killed an era?
(05:32):
You got the you got the what else do we have?
You got hacks, OK, Which I thinkis completed.
I don't know. There's at least four that I'm
really excited about. I don't hope tragedy happens to
me or I don't hope for them to be another shelter in place.
But if there was. You're set.
I'm. Just saying OK at.
(05:55):
Least for a month, as you say. You know what?
I'm just going to do a a 30 day trial on HBO Max or whatever the
skull itself now and then just binge everything night and day.
It's like, well that's the week 1, now what do I do?
Can you read my diary? Oh my God, You know what?
At the very least, you're being authentic to who you are.
And that's really the key which.It is the key.
(06:17):
Which reminds me. Yeah, I.
Have a topic for today which we've skirted around, no pun
intended. We have it.
We've been talking about it in many ways over the years on this
show, and I'm sure there's been a topic akin to it being the
primary thought of the episode I've been thinking about.
(06:41):
How do we know that our authenticity is actually our
authenticity? How do we know what we're doing
is just not make believe that wehave an idea in our head and
we're going to make it come true?
Hell or high water, it goes backto the idea of what everybody is
talking about. So all these kids know all about
being trans and queer and bisexual, and now it's just
(07:03):
trendy. So now everybody's doing it.
Everybody's putting that hat on to see if it fits just because
it's the thing to do. And it just keeps leading me
back to this idea. Well, am I deluding myself?
Am I getting all de Lulu up in this piece about expansiveness?
Or is it really? Can I really rely on my own
self-assessment to know that my truth is my truth?
(07:26):
I love that. I love that, you know, the idea
of where does authenticity live and when is it true?
When is it glorified? And I think that's really
important in the context of trans cross dressing and gender
expansive folks, especially withthe powerful influence of being
(07:48):
an influencer on social media. That's a whole another piece of
it. I love that topic.
I love that topic in so many ways because when we show up on
social media as we do and we think we're telling our story or
we think we're showing up and we're sharing ourselves and
we're being visible, it's like, OK, well, you have filters and
(08:12):
then you have the editing part of, of sharing on social media
where you can cut and trim and clip.
You have a very kind of posturedway of showing up as your quote
authentic self. When people kind of process
stuff on social media, have theyprocessed it before getting on
(08:33):
that live and processing it? Have they done the work that is
truly without anyone else's view, dealing with those deep
rooted issues within their authenticity?
Or are they tricked into thinking that if I process all
of this in front of an audience and maybe I shed a tear, I am
(08:55):
being my authentic self with theaudience.
I don't know if it's, it's confusing.
Yeah, definitely. And this is probably why I've
been struggling for so many years, because you remember when
my friends were in town a littlewhile ago now.
And it happened before. It happened when I went to
Tennessee a year ago for the TryPride prom.
(09:18):
And I don't know if you rememberbefore that trip, I was super
anxious. I, I didn't know how I was
supposed to present myself because I built, like I said,
this curated image of myself as Savannah and one I'm like, Oh my
God, do I need to dress a certain way?
Do I need to do a certain thing?Do I need to act a certain way?
And I was so concerned about thequote UN quote image that most
(09:43):
of the people I've never met before knew me as that.
It really threw me off as I can't even show up as Chuck.
I can't just show up all of a sudden as Chuck.
They don't know who Chuck is andthey don't want Chuck, they want
Savannah. And so I have to, I have to be a
certain way in front of people. That was a year over a year ago
now. And then the same thing happened
(10:04):
about 6-8 weeks ago when my friends came into town where I
was struggling with how to appear.
I was like, Oh no, they're in town to see me and, and I don't
want to really dress up this daybecause it's going to be super
hot and I know I'm going to be super uncomfortable.
So I'll just go with Chuck and everybody's like, yeah, that's
why we're all doing the same thing.
None of us are dressing up. We're all going to just be as
comfortable as possible and thenget dialed up for later in the
(10:26):
day. So I've had to come to terms
with, strangely enough, being OKas Chuck in front of people who
know me as Savannah primarily, and to be OK in either guys with
these people who are my friends.And that thrown me off too.
So which part of me is authentic?
Yes, I'm authentically Savannah.I'm authentically Chuck,
(10:47):
obviously, biologically and as anamesake.
But it's like I keep getting this weird push pull within
myself about it. Maybe not the authenticity part
of it, but about what people want or what I think people want
to see or be around and realizing, yeah, it's you.
It's still you. Why are you so concerned about
how you look? It's still your heart and soul
(11:07):
and spirit that's showing up. That's what we're here for.
We're here for that authenticity, not the fact that
you might be in heels, in red hair.
So if I tend to deal with that, I would probably could cover
that as its own topic. We're getting back to you.
How do I know my authenticity interms of developing Savannah is
truly authentic versus some delusion I've told myself over
(11:29):
the years to either, I don't know, make it OK in my own brain
or to again, delude myself that I'm not a freak.
So I will normalize it in my ownhead by telling a lie to myself
to say, well, in order for me toto trick does not fetishistic
that I'm going to make believe it's something else and I'm
going to cling to that thing because that'll make it normal.
(11:52):
Right. And you and I have dissected for
years, you know, everybody has alittle bit of kink in them.
Everybody has a little bit of taboo and everybody has a little
bit of the things that not everybody loves, but you need to
love for yourself. And that makes you your most
true self. Right.
And I think that when it comes to what we show other people in
(12:13):
terms of who we are, especially on social media, there's a
certain performative aspect to it, if you will.
And I think that in the example you gave with showing up for
some friends, figuring out how to present as Savannah, do I
show Chuck, all that kind of stuff is is very common when
(12:36):
you're building a new friendshipor people are getting to know,
quote, the real you first, the you that is your feminine
persona, right? And all that can be very
vulnerable. Stripping back the layers of
being like, OK, who are the friendships that I'm really
going to invest in when it comesto letting them in on a version
(13:00):
of me that isn't perfect or thatis a little edgy and a little
scrappy and a little more raspy and a little less curated.
And I feel that the only way to truly develop authentic
connection, the only way is through vulnerability.
(13:20):
It becomes very, very confusing when we think about the areas in
which we show up in our lives and how we show up and what we
show up with. And I do know that there's only
a small amount of people that really know me in the sense that
I could not reach, you know, youknow this about me.
(13:41):
I cannot be very commutative fora while.
I could be very quiet in messaging.
And that is kind of a call to action for these close people in
my life to check in with me and say, you know, hey, what's going
on? Are you OK?
You know what I mean? Because I there's no real need
to perform with those deep relationships, with those
(14:02):
selective few that know you, that are tuned into you, the
real you, not the you that is the author or the Ted X speaker
or the, for me, the funny one orthe one, the crazy one or
whatever it is. It's the parts that you may not
showcase to the masses. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we're all like always being on and always
(14:25):
feeling like you got to do the song dance routine for
everybody's enjoyment versus youknow what, I don't want to be
that way today and I hope that'sOK.
You shouldn't have to ask yourself if that's OK.
Like to get other people's validation that it's OK to not
be fully on, engaged, whatever at any moment.
(14:46):
And I think I do struggle with that a little bit.
Getting back to the gender ish side of it.
You're talking about Huron feelings that everybody can
understand and relate to for sure.
And when it comes to gender, most people don't have a concern
about their biology and their presentation and their identity
(15:06):
and you know who they are as a person versus so many of us are
struggling with trying to find our authenticity, trying to
accept our authenticity. And I've been doing this for
years. So I will tell you point blank
that it is an evolution. What is true today is not
necessarily true tomorrow. It is OK to not know what the
(15:27):
future holds as long as you are understanding that the future
will be the future. And if you fully endorse and
accept yourself in a certain waytoday, that doesn't mean you you
should stop. You may be completely
comfortable and what you found and what you feel is authentic
to you. And yet that vestige, that
(15:47):
authenticity can evolve and growand change of course.
So we should keep that in mind. The one thing that I keep coming
back to you myself is Savannah true, Is Savannah authentic?
Is she truly a part of me or am I just like making something up?
I have had these feelings about Savannah since I was 5-6 years
old. Though Savannah didn't exist.
(16:08):
But this femininity, this drawn to the femininity existed like
we have talked about in other episodes about binging, purging,
pink fall, purge, pink fog, purging, cycling, cycling,
cycling of embracing it, rejecting it, embracing it,
rejecting it. It's I've never rejected it.
I've hidden it, obviously, but this is not something where once
(16:30):
I I might have gotten to a pointof rejection where I've never
thought about it since that's never been the case.
Savannah's constantly coming back into view, even with those
times when you and I have spokenon air about, well, I don't
know, I just don't feel like dressing.
And I feel like if I don't dress, not being untrue to
myself, we realize that you knowwhat?
(16:51):
Sometimes Savannah's not going to show up in those ways.
That doesn't mean Savannah doesn't exist.
It just means that you're going through the ebbs and flows of
how life works for everybody. I will say that definitely
number one for me is it's been persistent.
And if something's persistent and you look at it through that
lens, then there is authenticitythere, right?
(17:12):
I think it's very tricky when you think about feminization
from male to female in terms of authenticity and when you think
about things like hyper femme play or cisification and all of
that kind of stuff. Does that make you, if you're
expressing that part of yourselfand it's very extreme levels of
(17:35):
high feminization versus your biology, which is masculine?
Does the kind of quote over the top femininity, is that
inauthentic because it's more stylized or because it's more
heightened? That's a question not to be
answered, but just to be thrown into this discussion.
And also the idea that there's lots of different parts of
(17:57):
ourselves that can show up at different times or different
moments. And just because let's say you
have a feminine side to yourselfthat has a name, that has a
place that feels very true to you, that does not mean that
within that feminine truth therecan't be a more sissified
version, more hyper version, more hyper femme version.
(18:19):
Excuse me, more kinky version ofthat.
I feel like that's still within your authentic self.
It's just a part of yourself that is needing expression,
needing attention, needing some heat, some sexualization.
Does it feel almost like a cartoon or superhero version of
that core baseline feminine woman that you gave a name to
(18:43):
and gave a girl next door vibe to?
Sure. But it's another part of
ourselves that live inside of usthat we feel the need to
express. So within that definition there
is authenticity there. Oh, absolutely.
And I'll say you always throw inthe the extremism of things
because I know you've had a lot of success and exposure to
(19:04):
clients with that need. And what I'll say to that is if
that's something that your clients or anybody listening, if
there is that quote UN quote extremism that really entices
you and you really gravitate towards, then I think that's
also a strong indication that exploration is authentic.
(19:26):
Because. If you return to it, right,
Yeah, because if you return to it and you're like, I love doing
this, I love being a Lolita, I love being sissified.
I love this super, super high heightened drag look or
whatever. The thing is, if it's something
that you truly enjoy and it brings you comfort or excitement
or you just love doing it and you love embodying it or it you,
(19:48):
then that seems very authentic to me versus I did it.
I'm not really into it, never mind.
So I think the idea of authenticity in that exploration
is very valid. Yes.
Yeah, totally agree. And the one thing we have in
hate, it's so funny because you get this what if scenario and
see if you're on a desert islandand nobody was around to tell
(20:10):
you what to do and how to be andhow to act and what all the
things. Would you want to be a woman?
Would you do this? Would you do that?
Would you wear bikini everyday? So if you don't have any
pressures and it's so hard to not be bogged down by external
pressures, by society, by our partners, by geography, whatever
it might be, culture, religion. If you can somehow block all
(20:34):
that noise out and you still feel that in a perfect world I
would love to be X, or I would love to be X + Y, or I'd love to
be this certain thing, and I'd love to embrace that in some
way. That's also, I think, very much
an indicator of your authenticity that if you could
do it, if nobody else had a problem with it, that also means
(20:55):
that's a little more authentic to you than to somebody else.
Yeah. And I think it gets really
confusing and really murky when we live in a place where we have
this glorified sense of authenticity, right?
Authenticity in its roots is a personal journey.
It's a personal conversation with yourself, about yourself
and all these many different parts that show up and all these
(21:17):
many changes. You know, I think we'd be
missing the mark if we didn't talk about authenticity with
ourselves first. Authenticity with and around
everyone else. When is vulnerability being used
as a way to get followers or gain clout or to show how real I
am? You know, when is it
(21:38):
performative and when is vulnerability without having
this be your driving mark? When is it utilized to showcase
that tender part of ourselves that will naturally create
connection? I don't know, but it's very easy
to say, this is me, I'm showing up, I'm having a bad day.
(21:59):
I mean, literally I follow thesepeople that just do constant
contact with their posts to the point where I'm not sure.
Like for example, there's some celebrities that are constantly
posting, constantly posting, andit makes me feel like I have to
unfollow them because I get so comfortable to thinking, well,
they have a child. Like, it makes me believe that
(22:22):
they're just on the phone, just this is how they exist.
They're just existing in this authentic space.
And maybe they let go of the filters or maybe they just have
one filter they use. But suddenly I start to feel
really protective of them because I'm like, oh man, if
this is The Truman Show, what doyou have that's just for
yourself? Yeah.
(22:43):
Oh my God, that's so true. That was a great movie, by the
way. Yeah, the idea that, I mean, in
that case, Jim Carrey didn't know he was performing.
He was just being him. That's why everybody loved the
show so much, because he didn't know everything was scripted.
I love the idea of what you're saying because it feeds into the
next part I want to talk about, which is if you do it for others
(23:04):
or for the public or like you said, performative, We as the
audience never really know what your truth is.
We just know what you're tellingus and that's such the hard
thing about social media and people who are public figures
and celebrities because we know the parts we've been told.
For instance, Mel Gibson, one ofmy favorite actors for the
(23:27):
longest time, and then he was pulled over and he went on an
anti-Semitic rant that was on the body cams and.
And it was like, oof, yeah. I don't know if I, you know,
what I thought about him as a person completely changed versus
what I knew from him as the characters he played.
So while I do not endorse anything about the person, I was
(23:47):
still able to somewhat enjoy hisperformances as the characters
because I separated him as an actor and a person and not a
really great human being at thatpoint in time.
To rigs on Lethal Weapon. I'm not saying that if he truly
is a hateful person, I'll somebody who wrote a certain
book stories about a wizard, youknow, I don't want to endorse
(24:08):
them. I don't want to give them more
money. I don't want to do something
that's going to make that personmore popular or have more clout.
So anyway, aside from those, I we're on the soapbox.
I apologize in terms of the authenticity of how do we see us
now, how the world sees us, but how we see us and what is most
true for us is looking at your comfort level of who you are.
(24:31):
And when you embody your male form or your female form or the
amalgam in between, how does that make you feel?
Does it give you comfort? Does it give you peace?
If you sit there imagining the possibilities beyond your
current situation, that could bean indicator of you wanting or
needing or desiring something that's more authentic to you
(24:52):
because it's part of your daily narrative.
They might not be outwardly presenting in a certain way, but
if you're always thinking about this possibility of becoming a
different part of yourself, that's super, super indicative
of either you're not leaning into your authenticity or it
just reinforces the fact that this is part of your
(25:14):
authenticity and it's OK to be curious.
We all started off with curiosity.
I don't think there's one personwho started off biologically X
or Y and then jumped into it as this is my identity.
No, they were curious, they had curiosity and just the step of
being curious allows you to expand who you could be.
(25:38):
I've heard so many stories aboutmy girlfriend wanted me to dress
up in her lingerie one day or she wanted me to wear her
panties during intimacy and I itwasn't like a one and done like
oh that was good but I haven't thought about it since.
If it fans the flames of your. Curiosity.
Absolutely. That allows for authenticity to
(25:59):
manifest. Absolutely.
I think that if you can be curious about something and then
kind of slowly, slowly just keepon I, I want to say inching away
at it, but keep on showing up curious and testing the
(26:20):
boundaries. And then that wakes up this
exploration hard to yourselves. I think that anything that is
really fire really quick can burn out.
But something of this slow burn of curiosity, it's really
delicious and really allows yourself to explore your
authenticity in a careful, slow and mindful way.
(26:42):
And I think that's why so many people are attracted to the
lookbooks is because it's not just I'm going to have a pink
fog and I'm going to order all these cute mini skirts because
I'm feeling hungry. I mean, there's that, of course
there's that. But I think the idea that
someone wants to work with a professional, someone wants to
(27:04):
slow this process down a little bit, and someone wants to look
at it and say, OK, this is real for me.
This is coming up for me. And I don't know what to do.
And I'm drawn to the feminine. And I need your help to figure
out what to do with this, what to do with this, so that I can
explore this feminine side of myself and a bit more with a bit
(27:25):
more mindfulness and a bit more curiosity maybe.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love this topic because
I think that authenticity is like we're AD or autism or
whatever. These words that have just been
put on blast in terms of their need to exploit in a way just to
put on high def. It's a you're authentic and
(27:47):
you're authentic. What is authentic and am I
authentic and this? But this is authentic too.
And it involves a little bit of slowing down and some
mindfulness, like I just said, and looking at it and just being
curious and developing some understanding around it, which
is one of those pillars of wherewe came from.
When we think about reflecting on this episode or what we can
(28:09):
take away from it. What are some of the Nuggets?
I know for me a nugget is. Am I doing this for me or am I
doing this for validation? Yeah, although validation is
important. What I would say, as you're
talking about burning bright andfizzling out, it's like if
you're curious about Queerdome and you go to a Pride event and
you see all these amazing peoplelive their best lives, their
(28:32):
best outward facing lives in these Pride parades.
And all of a sudden, the flames of your curiosity it it throws a
gallon of gasoline on it. And.
Now you're like, yes, this is me.
I'm coming out. I want the world to.
Now and then you leave and a week later, the gasoline's
(28:53):
burned off, the flames are not being fanned by anybody but
yourself. And now you're back down to
something that more resembling embers, questioning whether that
was true or not, or if you just got caught up in the excitement
of all that energy. And so both can be true.
You can still be curious. Like you said, people come to
(29:13):
you to slow it down. I have a curiosity or I feel
like I'm someplace where I need to take a step forward with some
guidance. And sometimes that's what push
not pushes you, that guides you into a certain direction that's
more meaningful to the person themselves when they can see it
on paper. Or if you go to get a makeover
and they turn you around in thatstylist chair and you see
(29:36):
yourself here and you're like, shit, this is exactly what I
feel is me in this way. So absolutely.
I love what you're saying about sometimes you burn bright and
then when you don't burn bright,you feel like it was all a lie.
But really, authenticity comes from the ground up.
It comes from the coals, those warm embers that are always part
(29:57):
of who you are. And that's just a matter of you
need for yourself to gently fan those embers into a flame that's
going to be the right height, bethe right heat, beat the right
area, do all the things that it needs to do for you so you feel
comfortable, you feel fulfilled,you're at peace, and you can
move forward. Yeah, and I think we missed the
(30:18):
mark if we didn't say that Sometimes coming face to face
with your authentic truth doesn't also result in being
fucking scared. Doesn't also result in you going
way back into the closet and starting to be at worst a
freaking troll and start trolling people on the Internet
that are living their lives out loud.
(30:41):
It that it doesn't sometimes fanthe flame for rocks, trash and
other particles that may come your way.
That's also part of it and figuring out how to hopefully
manage it. But I want to really put a put
on blast the idea that it may not be easy to come face to face
(31:02):
with your authenticity. And the biggest way that a
homophobe is a homophobe is through having some homosexual,
you know, ideas and thoughts about themselves.
I mean, it's been proven, you know, so, so it can be
authenticity. As lovely and gooey and
mysterious and remarkable as it is, it can also be very scary,
(31:27):
very traumatic. It's a part of the the balance
of it all and finding the balance because if you're not
ready to receive or hear or be apart of certain parts of
yourself, if you're closeted, ifyou're scared, if you feel
wounded by them, your reflex canbe safety.
(31:51):
Your reflex can be to shut it down.
And so I just wanted to put thatout there that that's also very
real and that also comes to the surface while exploring your
authenticity. Yeah.
Like I said, it all comes down to mindfulness.
If you get triggered by the trauma of what could be true and
you run from it because of external pressures versus being
(32:15):
mindful to your own heart, yes, in those cases you may run away.
It could be super scary, it could be super triggering.
It could be a detriment to what you are doing in life, in your
success and like it could bring you down to ruin possibly.
Absolutely. All those things can be true.
And I also will always be a proponent that if you look
(32:36):
inward mindfully, it was self love without the external
pressures of what could be bad about it.
That's why all of us are who we are now, who go out and advocate
and don't want the younger generation or even people, our
peers to struggle and suffer because we want to show that
this can be the life, which is why people get so jazzed up when
(32:58):
they go to Pride and they see what it could be.
Now, again, you have to do all that work yourself.
It happened somewhat in a vacuum, unfortunately.
But yeah, it's super, super important.
I'd love, I appreciate you bringing up that point of it
goes just two ways straight and goes both ways.
So thank you to you. Yeah, now that you said that,
I'm thinking about all the bad stuff.
(33:19):
But don't think about that. I won't think about the bad
stuff, but I'm simply saying, I just want to say that
authenticity and being your authentic self can come at a
cost. It's not bad, it's just the
truth. I mean, it really can come at a
cost. And figuring out where the line
is about pursuing it and how farwe must go to pursue it.
(33:39):
You know, it has a real cause and effects in terms of the
choices prior to that moment when it comes to the family you
chose, the children you had, theall the kind of complications
that come from living your truth.
Yep. That's so true.
Yep, I'm like, Yep. Yep, on that note.
Right, on that note, it's all good until it's bad.
(34:05):
No, I really, I do appreciate this episode very much.
So thank you for coming to the table with this.
Yeah, thank you for always meeting me where I am and having
so many, so many pearls of wisdom.
Pearls. Pearls of wisdom.
Pearls of wisdom, baby. All right, I mean, I guess at
(34:25):
this point we could say I did toall our lovely listeners who
know hopefully that every Wednesday we have a new episode.
We've been pretty good lately. And as I've said, we don't have
a new episode. It gives you time to catch up.
You can go back to old episodes and enjoy those all over again
because now you are a different person than you were a year ago
(34:46):
when you listen to the episode. You could listen.
Fresh ears and be like, huh, I hear that.
I know what you're saying. We love all our listeners.
We love you for sticking with usand enjoying the content we put
out. And Julie, I know you usually
say it first, but I want to say it first that I love death, love
you to death, and you hold a very special place in my heart
(35:10):
that's very authentic. Thank you.
I feel authentically enriched byour listeners and by you and by
this experience. It feels like only yesterday.
No, it really feels like 10 years ago when we started this
podcast it. Is really somewhere in the
middle. Not yesterday, Not ten years.
(35:30):
Right in the middle. Right, so lots of love to you
and I hope everyone has a safe rest of their week and this
podcast finds you well and we'lllove you.
And don't forget to hydrate and wear sunscreen and bye for now.
Until next time, you can find meon Facebook at Savannah Hawk or
(35:57):
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 Hangar
or at Julie MTF Style, as well as on our website at
foxandhangar.com. Julie, it's your moment.
(36:23):
The 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
cross dressers and transgender women.
Hey, Julie. Hi, Savannah, I'll ring you.
I'm good. That's it.
No, I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm just a little. Oh, Dre, did you ever have that
experience? When you get into a show and
(00:50):
it's like the binge, it goes a little too far, right?
And then suddenly it's the equivalent of not brushing your
teeth for a while where you feellike you have fur on your teeth.
I feel like I have fur on my eyeballs.
Yeah, I was in that kind of situation with you Don't know
it, but I love it. The queer ultimatum.
(01:12):
Please explain. So originally The Ultimatum,
it's a dating show essentially on Netflix.
It's addictive and it's based onNick Lachey, Jessica Simpson's
former husband, and Vanessa, I forget her name.
And basically the two of them are dating, We're dating.
(01:33):
And then they get a certain point where she wants him to put
a ring on it or a commitment andhe's like in 98° or maybe he
wasn't, but she's I'm out of here if you don't commit.
And he's like, OK, I'll commit. Anywho, the show is based on
that. And it's one of these things
where they have a bunch of couples enter the house and
there's a long table and one of the members of the the couple
(01:57):
issues the ultimatum and says, you know, I'm leaving you if you
don't put a ring on it. And the other one is the one who
receives the ultimatum, OK. And then they mix them up, match
them up, they all date each other.
They pair off with their new fake someone and they live for
three weeks. And then it's all this drama,
OK, which I'm just like, all right, heteronormative cyst,
(02:19):
this is boring. But then they came out with a
queer ultimatum, which is very tantalizing to the eyes.
If you must know, the first one was last year or the year
before. Either way, it was much more
interesting than this one. But this one's got the long
table discussion where they all talk it out.
(02:41):
So it's very addicting. There's high drama and I just
loved it and I watched it so much.
I was so invested in it. And my eyes are all bleeding
over and getting all gooey. And then I stopped eating and
then I stopped really sleeping on the schedule.
And then I just go from being a very productive person to
(03:03):
chasing the episode. Chasing the episode.
Oh, I think I'll cancel this exercise class and stay up just
a little later. OK, And now what do they do?
They blue balls me. OK?
I get through a certain amount of stuff, and then they stop me.
They stop me at the most riveting part, when you're going
to find out if the couples are going to be together and like,
sorry, you have to wait until Wednesday.
(03:25):
Oh, got it, got it. Now I understand.
So when you understand for my. I understand the show.
As soon as you explain to them, I'm like, Oh yeah, I had heard
of that. And two, This is why I don't
typically watch series until they're complete or seasons
complete. So yeah.
So we don't run into that like Blue Balling, if you will.
(03:46):
I am working on two shows that Iknow have complete seasons. 1 is
Blind Spot from NBC. It's on Season 5.
And I was doing the classic. Let me just watch one more one.
It's always watching 4 episodes,5 episodes a night.
Not good. That's a little much.
That's a little much. Let's keep you up too late.
And then when I said, you know what, that's a little too much
(04:07):
of that and I'm getting bored and I go and I'm watching Poker
Face. Oh, I love it.
Yeah, that one. I just finished Season 1, which
is pretty fun. I will say.
It's like, man, if that's your real voice, that's gotta be
rough. It is.
I heard an interview with her last night with Amy Poehler.
No, I love her. I'm kind of like her.
(04:27):
Ish, right? All right, fun.
I'm not. But if I was a different person
with her clothes and her background, I would totally be
her. All right, go ahead.
OK. No, that's it.
I, it's just, you know, her voices are unique and sometimes
can be, I don't know, a little distracting from the story.
I'm not saying it needs to be something else, but it's just
(04:48):
sometimes a little too much for me.
But I have been enjoying the storytelling on Season 1 of
Poker Face. I just finished, so now I'll
start Season 2 when it starts upversus other shows where I
watched the episode as soon as it airs and then like you said,
now you got to wait a week for it to come up with the next one.
So yeah, I, I both are true. As we always say, both can be
true at the same time. And both can be true.
(05:10):
And the fact that I don't have HBO right now, but I'm going to
get it someday, right? Someday.
And so right now I have so many shows that have completed, as
well as so many shows that are in the height and heart of their
season so that when I do get HBO, it's going to be like,
don't call me for at least a year.
OK. What killed an era?
(05:32):
You got the you got the what else do we have?
You got hacks, OK, Which I thinkis completed.
I don't know. There's at least four that I'm
really excited about. I don't hope tragedy happens to
me or I don't hope for them to be another shelter in place.
But if there was. You're set.
I'm. Just saying OK at.
(05:55):
Least for a month, as you say. You know what?
I'm just going to do a a 30 day trial on HBO Max or whatever the
skull itself now and then just binge everything night and day.
It's like, well that's the week 1, now what do I do?
Can you read my diary? Oh my God, You know what?
At the very least, you're being authentic to who you are.
And that's really the key which.It is the key.
(06:17):
Which reminds me. Yeah, I.
Have a topic for today which we've skirted around, no pun
intended. We have it.
We've been talking about it in many ways over the years on this
show, and I'm sure there's been a topic akin to it being the
primary thought of the episode I've been thinking about.
(06:41):
How do we know that our authenticity is actually our
authenticity? How do we know what we're doing
is just not make believe that wehave an idea in our head and
we're going to make it come true?
Hell or high water, it goes backto the idea of what everybody is
talking about. So all these kids know all about
being trans and queer and bisexual, and now it's just
(07:03):
trendy. So now everybody's doing it.
Everybody's putting that hat on to see if it fits just because
it's the thing to do. And it just keeps leading me
back to this idea. Well, am I deluding myself?
Am I getting all de Lulu up in this piece about expansiveness?
Or is it really? Can I really rely on my own
self-assessment to know that my truth is my truth?
(07:26):
I love that. I love that, you know, the idea
of where does authenticity live and when is it true?
When is it glorified? And I think that's really
important in the context of trans cross dressing and gender
expansive folks, especially withthe powerful influence of being
(07:48):
an influencer on social media. That's a whole another piece of
it. I love that topic.
I love that topic in so many ways because when we show up on
social media as we do and we think we're telling our story or
we think we're showing up and we're sharing ourselves and
we're being visible, it's like, OK, well, you have filters and
(08:12):
then you have the editing part of, of sharing on social media
where you can cut and trim and clip.
You have a very kind of posturedway of showing up as your quote
authentic self. When people kind of process
stuff on social media, have theyprocessed it before getting on
(08:33):
that live and processing it? Have they done the work that is
truly without anyone else's view, dealing with those deep
rooted issues within their authenticity?
Or are they tricked into thinking that if I process all
of this in front of an audience and maybe I shed a tear, I am
(08:55):
being my authentic self with theaudience.
I don't know if it's, it's confusing.
Yeah, definitely. And this is probably why I've
been struggling for so many years, because you remember when
my friends were in town a littlewhile ago now.
And it happened before. It happened when I went to
Tennessee a year ago for the TryPride prom.
(09:18):
And I don't know if you rememberbefore that trip, I was super
anxious. I, I didn't know how I was
supposed to present myself because I built, like I said,
this curated image of myself as Savannah and one I'm like, Oh my
God, do I need to dress a certain way?
Do I need to do a certain thing?Do I need to act a certain way?
And I was so concerned about thequote UN quote image that most
(09:43):
of the people I've never met before knew me as that.
It really threw me off as I can't even show up as Chuck.
I can't just show up all of a sudden as Chuck.
They don't know who Chuck is andthey don't want Chuck, they want
Savannah. And so I have to, I have to be a
certain way in front of people. That was a year over a year ago
now. And then the same thing happened
(10:04):
about 6-8 weeks ago when my friends came into town where I
was struggling with how to appear.
I was like, Oh no, they're in town to see me and, and I don't
want to really dress up this daybecause it's going to be super
hot and I know I'm going to be super uncomfortable.
So I'll just go with Chuck and everybody's like, yeah, that's
why we're all doing the same thing.
None of us are dressing up. We're all going to just be as
comfortable as possible and thenget dialed up for later in the
(10:26):
day. So I've had to come to terms
with, strangely enough, being OKas Chuck in front of people who
know me as Savannah primarily, and to be OK in either guys with
these people who are my friends.And that thrown me off too.
So which part of me is authentic?
Yes, I'm authentically Savannah.I'm authentically Chuck,
(10:47):
obviously, biologically and as anamesake.
But it's like I keep getting this weird push pull within
myself about it. Maybe not the authenticity part
of it, but about what people want or what I think people want
to see or be around and realizing, yeah, it's you.
It's still you. Why are you so concerned about
how you look? It's still your heart and soul
(11:07):
and spirit that's showing up. That's what we're here for.
We're here for that authenticity, not the fact that
you might be in heels, in red hair.
So if I tend to deal with that, I would probably could cover
that as its own topic. We're getting back to you.
How do I know my authenticity interms of developing Savannah is
truly authentic versus some delusion I've told myself over
(11:29):
the years to either, I don't know, make it OK in my own brain
or to again, delude myself that I'm not a freak.
So I will normalize it in my ownhead by telling a lie to myself
to say, well, in order for me toto trick does not fetishistic
that I'm going to make believe it's something else and I'm
going to cling to that thing because that'll make it normal.
(11:52):
Right. And you and I have dissected for
years, you know, everybody has alittle bit of kink in them.
Everybody has a little bit of taboo and everybody has a little
bit of the things that not everybody loves, but you need to
love for yourself. And that makes you your most
true self. Right.
And I think that when it comes to what we show other people in
(12:13):
terms of who we are, especially on social media, there's a
certain performative aspect to it, if you will.
And I think that in the example you gave with showing up for
some friends, figuring out how to present as Savannah, do I
show Chuck, all that kind of stuff is is very common when
(12:36):
you're building a new friendshipor people are getting to know,
quote, the real you first, the you that is your feminine
persona, right? And all that can be very
vulnerable. Stripping back the layers of
being like, OK, who are the friendships that I'm really
going to invest in when it comesto letting them in on a version
(13:00):
of me that isn't perfect or thatis a little edgy and a little
scrappy and a little more raspy and a little less curated.
And I feel that the only way to truly develop authentic
connection, the only way is through vulnerability.
(13:20):
It becomes very, very confusing when we think about the areas in
which we show up in our lives and how we show up and what we
show up with. And I do know that there's only
a small amount of people that really know me in the sense that
I could not reach, you know, youknow this about me.
(13:41):
I cannot be very commutative fora while.
I could be very quiet in messaging.
And that is kind of a call to action for these close people in
my life to check in with me and say, you know, hey, what's going
on? Are you OK?
You know what I mean? Because I there's no real need
to perform with those deep relationships, with those
(14:02):
selective few that know you, that are tuned into you, the
real you, not the you that is the author or the Ted X speaker
or the, for me, the funny one orthe one, the crazy one or
whatever it is. It's the parts that you may not
showcase to the masses. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we're all like always being on and always
(14:25):
feeling like you got to do the song dance routine for
everybody's enjoyment versus youknow what, I don't want to be
that way today and I hope that'sOK.
You shouldn't have to ask yourself if that's OK.
Like to get other people's validation that it's OK to not
be fully on, engaged, whatever at any moment.
(14:46):
And I think I do struggle with that a little bit.
Getting back to the gender ish side of it.
You're talking about Huron feelings that everybody can
understand and relate to for sure.
And when it comes to gender, most people don't have a concern
about their biology and their presentation and their identity
(15:06):
and you know who they are as a person versus so many of us are
struggling with trying to find our authenticity, trying to
accept our authenticity. And I've been doing this for
years. So I will tell you point blank
that it is an evolution. What is true today is not
necessarily true tomorrow. It is OK to not know what the
(15:27):
future holds as long as you are understanding that the future
will be the future. And if you fully endorse and
accept yourself in a certain waytoday, that doesn't mean you you
should stop. You may be completely
comfortable and what you found and what you feel is authentic
to you. And yet that vestige, that
(15:47):
authenticity can evolve and growand change of course.
So we should keep that in mind. The one thing that I keep coming
back to you myself is Savannah true, Is Savannah authentic?
Is she truly a part of me or am I just like making something up?
I have had these feelings about Savannah since I was 5-6 years
old. Though Savannah didn't exist.
(16:08):
But this femininity, this drawn to the femininity existed like
we have talked about in other episodes about binging, purging,
pink fall, purge, pink fog, purging, cycling, cycling,
cycling of embracing it, rejecting it, embracing it,
rejecting it. It's I've never rejected it.
I've hidden it, obviously, but this is not something where once
(16:30):
I I might have gotten to a pointof rejection where I've never
thought about it since that's never been the case.
Savannah's constantly coming back into view, even with those
times when you and I have spokenon air about, well, I don't
know, I just don't feel like dressing.
And I feel like if I don't dress, not being untrue to
myself, we realize that you knowwhat?
(16:51):
Sometimes Savannah's not going to show up in those ways.
That doesn't mean Savannah doesn't exist.
It just means that you're going through the ebbs and flows of
how life works for everybody. I will say that definitely
number one for me is it's been persistent.
And if something's persistent and you look at it through that
lens, then there is authenticitythere, right?
(17:12):
I think it's very tricky when you think about feminization
from male to female in terms of authenticity and when you think
about things like hyper femme play or cisification and all of
that kind of stuff. Does that make you, if you're
expressing that part of yourselfand it's very extreme levels of
(17:35):
high feminization versus your biology, which is masculine?
Does the kind of quote over the top femininity, is that
inauthentic because it's more stylized or because it's more
heightened? That's a question not to be
answered, but just to be thrown into this discussion.
And also the idea that there's lots of different parts of
(17:57):
ourselves that can show up at different times or different
moments. And just because let's say you
have a feminine side to yourselfthat has a name, that has a
place that feels very true to you, that does not mean that
within that feminine truth therecan't be a more sissified
version, more hyper version, more hyper femme version.
(18:19):
Excuse me, more kinky version ofthat.
I feel like that's still within your authentic self.
It's just a part of yourself that is needing expression,
needing attention, needing some heat, some sexualization.
Does it feel almost like a cartoon or superhero version of
that core baseline feminine woman that you gave a name to
(18:43):
and gave a girl next door vibe to?
Sure. But it's another part of
ourselves that live inside of usthat we feel the need to
express. So within that definition there
is authenticity there. Oh, absolutely.
And I'll say you always throw inthe the extremism of things
because I know you've had a lot of success and exposure to
(19:04):
clients with that need. And what I'll say to that is if
that's something that your clients or anybody listening, if
there is that quote UN quote extremism that really entices
you and you really gravitate towards, then I think that's
also a strong indication that exploration is authentic.
(19:26):
Because. If you return to it, right,
Yeah, because if you return to it and you're like, I love doing
this, I love being a Lolita, I love being sissified.
I love this super, super high heightened drag look or
whatever. The thing is, if it's something
that you truly enjoy and it brings you comfort or excitement
or you just love doing it and you love embodying it or it you,
(19:48):
then that seems very authentic to me versus I did it.
I'm not really into it, never mind.
So I think the idea of authenticity in that exploration
is very valid. Yes.
Yeah, totally agree. And the one thing we have in
hate, it's so funny because you get this what if scenario and
see if you're on a desert islandand nobody was around to tell
(20:10):
you what to do and how to be andhow to act and what all the
things. Would you want to be a woman?
Would you do this? Would you do that?
Would you wear bikini everyday? So if you don't have any
pressures and it's so hard to not be bogged down by external
pressures, by society, by our partners, by geography, whatever
it might be, culture, religion. If you can somehow block all
(20:34):
that noise out and you still feel that in a perfect world I
would love to be X, or I would love to be X + Y, or I'd love to
be this certain thing, and I'd love to embrace that in some
way. That's also, I think, very much
an indicator of your authenticity that if you could
do it, if nobody else had a problem with it, that also means
(20:55):
that's a little more authentic to you than to somebody else.
Yeah. And I think it gets really
confusing and really murky when we live in a place where we have
this glorified sense of authenticity, right?
Authenticity in its roots is a personal journey.
It's a personal conversation with yourself, about yourself
and all these many different parts that show up and all these
(21:17):
many changes. You know, I think we'd be
missing the mark if we didn't talk about authenticity with
ourselves first. Authenticity with and around
everyone else. When is vulnerability being used
as a way to get followers or gain clout or to show how real I
am? You know, when is it
(21:38):
performative and when is vulnerability without having
this be your driving mark? When is it utilized to showcase
that tender part of ourselves that will naturally create
connection? I don't know, but it's very easy
to say, this is me, I'm showing up, I'm having a bad day.
(21:59):
I mean, literally I follow thesepeople that just do constant
contact with their posts to the point where I'm not sure.
Like for example, there's some celebrities that are constantly
posting, constantly posting, andit makes me feel like I have to
unfollow them because I get so comfortable to thinking, well,
they have a child. Like, it makes me believe that
(22:22):
they're just on the phone, just this is how they exist.
They're just existing in this authentic space.
And maybe they let go of the filters or maybe they just have
one filter they use. But suddenly I start to feel
really protective of them because I'm like, oh man, if
this is The Truman Show, what doyou have that's just for
yourself? Yeah.
(22:43):
Oh my God, that's so true. That was a great movie, by the
way. Yeah, the idea that, I mean, in
that case, Jim Carrey didn't know he was performing.
He was just being him. That's why everybody loved the
show so much, because he didn't know everything was scripted.
I love the idea of what you're saying because it feeds into the
next part I want to talk about, which is if you do it for others
(23:04):
or for the public or like you said, performative, We as the
audience never really know what your truth is.
We just know what you're tellingus and that's such the hard
thing about social media and people who are public figures
and celebrities because we know the parts we've been told.
For instance, Mel Gibson, one ofmy favorite actors for the
(23:27):
longest time, and then he was pulled over and he went on an
anti-Semitic rant that was on the body cams and.
And it was like, oof, yeah. I don't know if I, you know,
what I thought about him as a person completely changed versus
what I knew from him as the characters he played.
So while I do not endorse anything about the person, I was
(23:47):
still able to somewhat enjoy hisperformances as the characters
because I separated him as an actor and a person and not a
really great human being at thatpoint in time.
To rigs on Lethal Weapon. I'm not saying that if he truly
is a hateful person, I'll somebody who wrote a certain
book stories about a wizard, youknow, I don't want to endorse
(24:08):
them. I don't want to give them more
money. I don't want to do something
that's going to make that personmore popular or have more clout.
So anyway, aside from those, I we're on the soapbox.
I apologize in terms of the authenticity of how do we see us
now, how the world sees us, but how we see us and what is most
true for us is looking at your comfort level of who you are.
(24:31):
And when you embody your male form or your female form or the
amalgam in between, how does that make you feel?
Does it give you comfort? Does it give you peace?
If you sit there imagining the possibilities beyond your
current situation, that could bean indicator of you wanting or
needing or desiring something that's more authentic to you
(24:52):
because it's part of your daily narrative.
They might not be outwardly presenting in a certain way, but
if you're always thinking about this possibility of becoming a
different part of yourself, that's super, super indicative
of either you're not leaning into your authenticity or it
just reinforces the fact that this is part of your
(25:14):
authenticity and it's OK to be curious.
We all started off with curiosity.
I don't think there's one personwho started off biologically X
or Y and then jumped into it as this is my identity.
No, they were curious, they had curiosity and just the step of
being curious allows you to expand who you could be.
(25:38):
I've heard so many stories aboutmy girlfriend wanted me to dress
up in her lingerie one day or she wanted me to wear her
panties during intimacy and I itwasn't like a one and done like
oh that was good but I haven't thought about it since.
If it fans the flames of your. Curiosity.
Absolutely. That allows for authenticity to
(25:59):
manifest. Absolutely.
I think that if you can be curious about something and then
kind of slowly, slowly just keepon I, I want to say inching away
at it, but keep on showing up curious and testing the
(26:20):
boundaries. And then that wakes up this
exploration hard to yourselves. I think that anything that is
really fire really quick can burn out.
But something of this slow burn of curiosity, it's really
delicious and really allows yourself to explore your
authenticity in a careful, slow and mindful way.
(26:42):
And I think that's why so many people are attracted to the
lookbooks is because it's not just I'm going to have a pink
fog and I'm going to order all these cute mini skirts because
I'm feeling hungry. I mean, there's that, of course
there's that. But I think the idea that
someone wants to work with a professional, someone wants to
(27:04):
slow this process down a little bit, and someone wants to look
at it and say, OK, this is real for me.
This is coming up for me. And I don't know what to do.
And I'm drawn to the feminine. And I need your help to figure
out what to do with this, what to do with this, so that I can
explore this feminine side of myself and a bit more with a bit
(27:25):
more mindfulness and a bit more curiosity maybe.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love this topic because
I think that authenticity is like we're AD or autism or
whatever. These words that have just been
put on blast in terms of their need to exploit in a way just to
put on high def. It's a you're authentic and
(27:47):
you're authentic. What is authentic and am I
authentic and this? But this is authentic too.
And it involves a little bit of slowing down and some
mindfulness, like I just said, and looking at it and just being
curious and developing some understanding around it, which
is one of those pillars of wherewe came from.
When we think about reflecting on this episode or what we can
(28:09):
take away from it. What are some of the Nuggets?
I know for me a nugget is. Am I doing this for me or am I
doing this for validation? Yeah, although validation is
important. What I would say, as you're
talking about burning bright andfizzling out, it's like if
you're curious about Queerdome and you go to a Pride event and
you see all these amazing peoplelive their best lives, their
(28:32):
best outward facing lives in these Pride parades.
And all of a sudden, the flames of your curiosity it it throws a
gallon of gasoline on it. And.
Now you're like, yes, this is me.
I'm coming out. I want the world to.
Now and then you leave and a week later, the gasoline's
(28:53):
burned off, the flames are not being fanned by anybody but
yourself. And now you're back down to
something that more resembling embers, questioning whether that
was true or not, or if you just got caught up in the excitement
of all that energy. And so both can be true.
You can still be curious. Like you said, people come to
(29:13):
you to slow it down. I have a curiosity or I feel
like I'm someplace where I need to take a step forward with some
guidance. And sometimes that's what push
not pushes you, that guides you into a certain direction that's
more meaningful to the person themselves when they can see it
on paper. Or if you go to get a makeover
and they turn you around in thatstylist chair and you see
(29:36):
yourself here and you're like, shit, this is exactly what I
feel is me in this way. So absolutely.
I love what you're saying about sometimes you burn bright and
then when you don't burn bright,you feel like it was all a lie.
But really, authenticity comes from the ground up.
It comes from the coals, those warm embers that are always part
(29:57):
of who you are. And that's just a matter of you
need for yourself to gently fan those embers into a flame that's
going to be the right height, bethe right heat, beat the right
area, do all the things that it needs to do for you so you feel
comfortable, you feel fulfilled,you're at peace, and you can
move forward. Yeah, and I think we missed the
(30:18):
mark if we didn't say that Sometimes coming face to face
with your authentic truth doesn't also result in being
fucking scared. Doesn't also result in you going
way back into the closet and starting to be at worst a
freaking troll and start trolling people on the Internet
that are living their lives out loud.
(30:41):
It that it doesn't sometimes fanthe flame for rocks, trash and
other particles that may come your way.
That's also part of it and figuring out how to hopefully
manage it. But I want to really put a put
on blast the idea that it may not be easy to come face to face
(31:02):
with your authenticity. And the biggest way that a
homophobe is a homophobe is through having some homosexual,
you know, ideas and thoughts about themselves.
I mean, it's been proven, you know, so, so it can be
authenticity. As lovely and gooey and
mysterious and remarkable as it is, it can also be very scary,
(31:27):
very traumatic. It's a part of the the balance
of it all and finding the balance because if you're not
ready to receive or hear or be apart of certain parts of
yourself, if you're closeted, ifyou're scared, if you feel
wounded by them, your reflex canbe safety.
(31:51):
Your reflex can be to shut it down.
And so I just wanted to put thatout there that that's also very
real and that also comes to the surface while exploring your
authenticity. Yeah.
Like I said, it all comes down to mindfulness.
If you get triggered by the trauma of what could be true and
you run from it because of external pressures versus being
(32:15):
mindful to your own heart, yes, in those cases you may run away.
It could be super scary, it could be super triggering.
It could be a detriment to what you are doing in life, in your
success and like it could bring you down to ruin possibly.
Absolutely. All those things can be true.
And I also will always be a proponent that if you look
(32:36):
inward mindfully, it was self love without the external
pressures of what could be bad about it.
That's why all of us are who we are now, who go out and advocate
and don't want the younger generation or even people, our
peers to struggle and suffer because we want to show that
this can be the life, which is why people get so jazzed up when
(32:58):
they go to Pride and they see what it could be.
Now, again, you have to do all that work yourself.
It happened somewhat in a vacuum, unfortunately.
But yeah, it's super, super important.
I'd love, I appreciate you bringing up that point of it
goes just two ways straight and goes both ways.
So thank you to you. Yeah, now that you said that,
I'm thinking about all the bad stuff.
(33:19):
But don't think about that. I won't think about the bad
stuff, but I'm simply saying, I just want to say that
authenticity and being your authentic self can come at a
cost. It's not bad, it's just the
truth. I mean, it really can come at a
cost. And figuring out where the line
is about pursuing it and how farwe must go to pursue it.
(33:39):
You know, it has a real cause and effects in terms of the
choices prior to that moment when it comes to the family you
chose, the children you had, theall the kind of complications
that come from living your truth.
Yep. That's so true.
Yep, I'm like, Yep. Yep, on that note.
Right, on that note, it's all good until it's bad.
(34:05):
No, I really, I do appreciate this episode very much.
So thank you for coming to the table with this.
Yeah, thank you for always meeting me where I am and having
so many, so many pearls of wisdom.
Pearls. Pearls of wisdom.
Pearls of wisdom, baby. All right, I mean, I guess at
(34:25):
this point we could say I did toall our lovely listeners who
know hopefully that every Wednesday we have a new episode.
We've been pretty good lately. And as I've said, we don't have
a new episode. It gives you time to catch up.
You can go back to old episodes and enjoy those all over again
because now you are a different person than you were a year ago
(34:46):
when you listen to the episode. You could listen.
Fresh ears and be like, huh, I hear that.
I know what you're saying. We love all our listeners.
We love you for sticking with usand enjoying the content we put
out. And Julie, I know you usually
say it first, but I want to say it first that I love death, love
you to death, and you hold a very special place in my heart
(35:10):
that's very authentic. Thank you.
I feel authentically enriched byour listeners and by you and by
this experience. It feels like only yesterday.
No, it really feels like 10 years ago when we started this
podcast it. Is really somewhere in the
middle. Not yesterday, Not ten years.
(35:30):
Right in the middle. Right, so lots of love to you
and I hope everyone has a safe rest of their week and this
podcast finds you well and we'lllove you.
And don't forget to hydrate and wear sunscreen and bye for now.
Until next time, you can find meon Facebook at Savannah Hawk or
(35:57):
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 Hangar
or at Julie MTF Style, as well as on our website at
foxandhangar.com. Julie, it's your moment.
(36:23):
The Fox and the Phoenix podcast uses Spotify for creators.
Copyright 2025. Yes, nailed it.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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.