DR Z PHD Interviews Dee Weingarden.
In this extraordinary interview, Dr. Z speaks with Dee Weingarten, a nurse, artist, and incredible cook who began transitioning 41 years ago in 1980—long before internet resources, informed consent models, or community support existed. As the youngest of five siblings in Mobile, Alabama, Dee's story spans four decades of transgender history, from buying hormones in sandwich bags from a fortune teller between tarot readings, to becoming a hospice nurse who cared for the art teacher who once humiliated them, to now providing crucial post-operative care through Weingarten Wellness.
Dee's art journey began in kindergarten with fine line drawings that look remarkably similar to their current work. But in sixth grade, art teacher Inez publicly humiliated them, calling them the "class queer," declaring they'd never be a good artist, snatching their drawing and throwing it on the floor while telling the class "she'll never be able to draw a line from point A to point B." Decades later, as Inez's hospice nurse helping her have a graceful passage, Dee silently shared that they'd just sent a drawing with 5,705 lines from point A to point B on the last flight of space shuttle Discovery.
This conversation explores Dee's haunting self-portrait series—intimate, no-makeup, wild-haired photographs labeled with single emotions (grief, anxiety, devotion, worry) that emerged from frustration with people minimizing their complex PTSD. Family members said "that was so long ago, haven't you moved on?" Therapists listed trauma specialties but admitted "it's not really my specialty." Dee redefined their experience: not a disorder, but a post-traumatic stress response. The photographs—taken with natural sunlight, pinhole filter, leaning over camera for distortion—show what absence of joy looks like, and they're liberating because Dee spent decades performing perfection, never leaving home without flawless makeup.
Key topics include: the employment terror of 1980s/90s transition (fired from three jobs in one month, seven in one year, security guards parading Dee through hospital department with self-righteous religious Southern women watching, hotels posting fluorescent orange warnings on bathroom doors), driving to New Orleans to read Renee Richards' book in one sitting because no bookstore would order it, learning transition medicine with a small-town doctor who said "we'll just figure it out" before any standards of care existed, and the survival strategy of creating elaborate lies with friends to navigate healthcare gatekeepers.
Dee reveals the shocking lack of post-operative care in gender-affirming surgery: cisgender patients get home health nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy after comparable procedures, but trans patients after vaginoplasty or phalloplasty get nothing—just a handout sheet. Medical systems make millions off trans surgeries but provide no follow-up, no coaching, no infection monitoring. Dee founded Weingarten Wellness after seeing people desperately posting online asking if anyone has a couch they can crash on after surgery they'd saved seven years to afford.
This interview addresses the gendered dynamics of post-op communication: trans men share resources openly, hook everyone up with information, while trans women suffer in silence, embarrassed about complications, worried about discouraging others. Dee calls for community accountability—issuing "report cards" to medical systems that cash insurance checks but stay silent during Trans Day of Remembrance, demanding town halls for trans healthcare needs assessment, and questioning why major programs have zero trans or non-binary staff.
Dee shares practical wisdom: the "HALT" check-in (Hungry? Angry/Anxious? Lonely? Tired?), the transformative practice of two minutes at 2:00 PM every day (phone alarm, stop, check in with yourself, let go of the clerk who looked at you funny), learning that self-care isn't manicures or shopping but asking "what's the next best thing for me right now?", and the liberation of accepting their entire life as one continuous journey rather than erasing a "dead name."
This conversation offers survivor wisdom from someone who drove two hours each way to buy black market hormones, lived through the era when being trans meant vampire nightlife to stay invisible, survived being outed by an ex-wife who weaponized their identity, and emerged as someone who helps trans community members have graceful passages through surgery—the care they deserved but never received. Dee's upcoming wellness book will include smoothie recipes for healing, supplement guidance for people on gender-affirming hormones, and resources on vitamin infusions, skin care, dental health, and food as medicine—because wellness shouldn't only be for privileged people.
