I was so excited to see the Philly trans firefighter in last week’s episode of What Not to Wear, that I had to track her down for an interview. It wasn’t an easy feat, considering all I had to go on from the episode was “Casey D.,” which, turns out, isn’t the most Google-friendly search term. Eventually Twitter was my saving grace, and I @’d and hashtag’d my heart out to arrange a chat with her this week. Thanks to the convenience of social networking, I now know that Casey D. is actually Casey Donegan, a 30-year-old volunteer firefighter and EMT in Flourtown. During our Q&A sesh she spilled the beans about what it’s like being behind the scenes of What Not to Wear, how she struggles with trying to maintain her million-dollar look on a working-woman’s budget and she opens up about all the hot dates she’s been on since she got the makeover.

G Philly: What did you think about the show after you saw it on TV?
Casey Donegan: I got to watch the show with my EMT house, and I think one of my EMTs put it best: “[It] was very respectful. It was tasteful.”

GP: What’s the biggest difference between the filming process and what we see on TV?
CD: The biggest difference is … a lot of times you’re just looking for the correct answer — you’re looking for those words they want you to say. I was in the 360 mirror for about 20 minutes before I finally said the words they apparently wanted to hear. … They would just leave you there to keep talking, and they’d ask you questions in slightly leading ways and you’d have to go down the path they’d want to take you.

GP: The show’s hosts [Stacy London and Clinton Kelly] seem fun and well-informed. Did you learn a lot from them?
CD: Actually, my personal shopper [who never appeared on screen] is the person I spent the most time with. I learned more from her than anybody else.

GP: So you’re saying Stacy and Clinton are just figureheads?
CD: Pretty much. What you saw on camera was pretty much my entire interaction with them. There was very little off-camera interaction. It wasn’t like they were avoiding me, they just wanted them to give genuine, fresh reactions to how I looked.

GP: Have you found that it’s easy to maintain your new look?
CD: Since then, I’ve gone shopping, but I’ve never been able to recreate the outfits I had on the show — those are $200 to $300 dresses. I also haven’t been able to wear makeup everyday like I said I would [on the show]. After seeing how I looked on TV, I decided to concentrate more on physical fitness than maintaining my makeup. For transgender people it takes twice as much workout to get half as much results … because of the hormones. I’ve knocked testosterone down to such a level that the body just wants to grab on to weight. When I was first transitioning, when I was [140 pounds], I was able to pull off much-more-feminine things and it was much more readable. But when I gained weight, I didn’t dress up as much. The plus side, though was that I was able to blend in more. I think I traded “she” for “sexy.” READ MORE