some dude on survivor outed another survivor who happened to be trans and called it “deception” like this was some damn soap opera and everyone was like ”lmao that’s personal and not your fucking problem?” and the host immediately said “We don’t need to vote, just grab your torch” and had him kicked off. that’s some instant fucking karma.
and then they let it air and outed someone to everyone ??
Yeah, they still aired it. I bet any money they knew he was trans and were counting on that coming up, perhaps only for tokenism rather than drama, but I have doubts.
Just coz they played the role of “look what such good allies we all are” doesn’t mean they didn’t just exploit a trans person and leverage transantagonism for ratings.
Zeke applied for the show without telling them he was trans because he wanted to be Zeke the survivor contestant and not just the trans survivor contestant. It was after the producers contacted him to say they were interested in casting him that he revealed it only to the producers. So yeah, they knew he was trans, but not because of the drama or as a token, they were already going to cast him before they knew because he wanted to make sure he wasn’t cast just to be a token.
Zeke and Jeff Probst (the host) had talked about how he would be able to decide whether or not he wanted the fact that he’s trans to be part of his story and when it would be revealed on the show if it would be revealed. Unfortunately, he couldn’t pick when because Varner outed him.
They kept it in the show because Zeke wanted it to be aired. Zeke got to decide with the producers and the help of GLAAD how the episode would be handled and they had been discussing it since the tribal council happened when the show was filmed 8 or 9 months ago up until it aired yesterday. He was happy that because his tribemates came to his defense and he was able to speak about his own feelings about what happened that something positive came out of a horrible situation and that’s partly why he wanted it aired.
Here’s an interview he did on The Talk earlier today where he talks about how he felt and why it was still aired. And here’s the essay he wrote for the Hollywood Reporter. In the tribal council (7:33-9:30) he talked about his feelings of wanting to be just Zeke the contestant when he applied to the show.