I received two comments plus I added the Yahoo News post: " On Wednesday night’s episode of “Survivor,” the world watched as one contestant outed another as transgender.
During an emotional tribal council with the group, Jeff Varner turned to fellow contestant Zeke Smith and asked, “Why haven’t you told anyone here that you’re transgender?”
“Survivor” host Jeff Probst spoke exclusively with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric about his reaction.
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| Zeke Smith |
“Everybody there had to replay in their head what they had just heard. I was the same way; I think Zeke was the same way,” Probst said. “It was a moment of ‘this just happened… I did hear what I think I just heard.’”
And the comments here on Cyrsti's Condo:From Connie:
- And then the show outed him to the whole world! The "reality" of the show is highly edited to the point of being unreal (or surreal, if they want it to be so). I don't watch the show, but I read that Probst thought the outing to be surreal, and the rest of the "cast" was appalled by the outing. I imagine they made that clear in the final edit. I hope the trans guy was OK with it all. If so, we can all take heart in the fact that the show has given a lesson to millions that it's not OK to out a trans person. It doesn't hurt their ratings with all of the hoopla, either.
- And:
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"I read the news article on this, on Gay Star News.
Whilst these unreality TV shows have never been on my viewing list, it's interesting to read of how this one did play out during filming, near on 8 months ago"
I am sure the "editors" on Survivor played this up for all it was worth, but the fact still remains Zeke wanted to play the game as a man...not a trans man. Which I thought was important for the audience to understand.
Plus the fact still remains that we (transgender women and trans men) still are an oddity of sorts, but even still we should not be the ones tossed under the bus for being trans.
Whatever the editing, the punishment was swift and the other guy was sent home.
