Castmate outs transgender ‘Survivor’ contestant
“Survivor’s” motto is “Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.” And when one of the contestants decided to “out” fellow Nuku tribesman Zeke Smith as transgener on Wednesday night’s episode, everyone agreed Jeff Varner was out of bounds.
The stunning reveal came during Tribal Council, when members of a losing team meet to vote someone out. Angry that he’d been marked for elimination, and hoping to sway the tribe by framing Mr. Smith as deceitful, Mr. Varner claimed deceptions were rampant, adding, “Why haven’t you told anyone you’re transgender?”
There was silence for several moments as Mr. Smith sat shocked.
“It’s one thing to lie about someone sneaking off at night to search for hidden [game] advantages. It is quite another to incense bigotry toward a marginalized minority,” Mr. Smith wrote in a guest column for Thursday’s online edition of The Hollywood Reporter.
In his column, Mr. Smith described the moment: “The lights magnified in brightness. The cameras, though 30 feet away, suddenly felt inches from my face. All sound faded. Something primal deep inside me screamed: run.”
The rest of the tribe immediately chastised Mr. Varner, an internet project manager from North Carolina, who is gay.
“But that’s personal, you didn’t have to do that,” said Sarah Lacina, eventually breaking down in tears. “That has nothing to do with the game.”
“In 34 seasons of ‘Survivor,’ I have rarely, if ever, personally commented on what is said or done in the game .... I cannot imagine anyone thinking what was done to Zeke was OK on any level, under any circumstances, and certainly not simply because there was a million dollars on the line,” host and executive producer Jeff Probst told Entertainment Weekly. “I think the response from the tribe, as it so often does, mirrors [what] the vast majority of society will feel. You just don’t do that to someone.”
“Survivor” has been averaging about 7.5 million viewers, live and same-day. Before shooting the most recent edition (“Survivor: Game Changers”) in Fiji, Mr. Smith was a cast member on the previous season (“Survivor: Millennials Vs. Gen X”).
Originally from Oklahoma, Mr. Smith studied religion at Harvard University and works as an asset manager in Brooklyn.
By Thursday morning, both sides, as well as many on social media, had weighed in.
“I made a mistake. A huge mistake. It was an awful thing to do,” Mr. Varner told Parade magazine. “And out of my mouth it came.”
He said he feels “horrible,” but hopes this will spark better awareness of the discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
“Our leaders are trying to erase trans people from society. It’s absolutely horrible. I hate that I’m a tool some of them will use. I’m just devastated over that.
“Outing is an assault, and I assaulted Zeke that night. ... It’s a hard thing for me to live with.”
Christine L. Bryan, spokeswoman for the Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh, had this statement about the outing of Mr. Smith on “Survivor.”
“It was disappointing that a member of our community would choose to use the word deception when outing a fellow community member,” she said. “While we were pleased to see the support other tribe members had for Zeke, the fact remains that coming out is a personal choice and what Jeff [Varner] did was hateful. The conversation hopefully was an opportunity for millions of people to see the struggle that trans people go through every day to be their authentic selves.”
The National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington, D.C., also released a statement through media relations manager Jay Wu:
“It’s important for people to remember that no transgender person is obliged to disclose that they’re transgender, just as nobody is obliged to broadcast other private information. As we saw [Wednesday] night, of course, not everyone is able to choose to keep that information private. ... Framing privacy as ‘deception’ plays into some of the same tropes that can
lead to discrimination and violence against transgender people.”
So much of what America considers “reality” television is, of course, just make believe. “Real Housewives” don’t really meet for threehour wine-infused lunches ALL the time, and even on the competition shows such as “Hell’s Kitchen” or “The Bachelor,” editing can shape the narrative in drastic ways.
In this case, Mr. Varner said, there were signs of forgiveness from Mr. Probst, as well as his tribe.
“I got forgiveness and compassion from everybody,” he told Parade. “None of that’s there [on the screen]. It was hard to watch.”
Daniel Fienberg, a writer for The Hollywood Reporter, took CBS to task for not providing, at the very least, trans resources websites or phone contact information during the closing credits.
Mr. Smith was cast before the producers knew he was trans.
“We agreed that if his story was to be told, he would be the one to decide when, where and how,” Mr. Probst told Entertainment Weekly.