"Survivor" Transgender Outing Response

I have never been so shocked to watch an episode of reality TV until I tuned in to watch an episode of "Survivor" on CBS a couple of weeks ago.

The episode mainly revolved around contestant Jeff Varner, who was on the outs within his tribe. He was trying to stir up trouble in order to try and save himself from getting voted out at tribal council that night. However, what started out as innocent, strategic game-play turned into a malicious backlash at another contestant.

During tribal council, Varner was trying to convince his tribe mates why they should consider voting someone else out instead of him. He then tried to turn attention to his fellow contestant and ally, Zeke. Varner and Zeke considered each other to be friends and had grown really close throughout the season. However, in an effort to try and protect himself during tribal council, Varner told his tribe mates that Zeke was portraying levels of "deception" that none of the other contestants were capable of understanding.

Varner then proceeded to look at Zeke and said, "Why haven't you told anyone you're transgender?"

Chaos ensued, as all of the contestants erupted with outrage at Varner.  Everybody was shocked and outraged, saying that Varner really crossed the line. This comment was truly inappropriate and irrelevant to the situation at hand. It was clear that Varner almost immediately regretted what he said, and he spent the rest of tribal council making countless apologies to Zeke. However, this did not help the fact that he even thought it was a good idea to bring it up in the first place. For the first time in Survivor history, it was unanimously decided that Varner should be eliminated on the spot, without going to a vote.

This situation started a lot of controversy within the media as soon as the episode was aired. There were many people who were outraged at the Survivor producers for choosing to air the episode in the first place. Jeff Probst and the Survivor producers said that Varner did not indicate that he was going to make this comment before going to tribal council, so this was a surprise to everybody. However, there was no way to continue on with the season by choosing to not release the episode without any form of explanation. There was also no way to edit around the situation, as this entire situation was the sole reason why Varner was chosen to be voted out. The Survivor crew is not at fault here.

I watched this episode weeks ago, and I am still in so much shock. I am genuinely surprised that Varner would do this to Zeke, especially since he, too, is a part of the LGBTQ+ community. He, of all people, should understand the struggles that someone goes with revealing something like this about themselves. This not a smart move for the game, this was a malicious move that affected another contestant's life forever. After the episode aired, Varner issued a formal apology on all of his social media platforms, saying how apologetic he is for doing such a horrible thing. He also said that he thinks that this is the worst decision he has made in his life. I am glad that he realizes his wrongdoing.

Zeke, surprisingly, took it all very well. After all of the chaos that occurred after Varner made that statement, Probst asked Zeke how he was doing. Zeke agreed that Varner's move was "not cool," but he knew it was going to come out eventually. Probst said that he knew about Zeke being transgender when they were casting for the show, and they both recognized that there was a possibly that other people could find out about it. Zeke said that, if it were to happen, he would be prepared to handle the situation at hand. Despite the fact that this all occurred in a horrible way, I think that Zeke handled it extremely well, and, in fact, made light of the situation at the end.

I never thought I'd see the day where a reality show would start up this much social controversy. My heart goes out to Zeke as he is dealing with all of this attention from the media. The actions of this episode should never have happened, but I think a lot of people will learn from it. It's 2017: people should NEVER have to deal with a situation like this. I hope that people now realize how horrible of an act this is, and will vow to never do the same.