This week, “Survivor: Game Changers” caused its fans and even social media in an uproar after a troubled contestant outed another competitor’s gender preference. The Los Angeles Times said Jeff Varner told host Jeff Probst and the other survivors on the show that “there is deception” going on, pertaining to fellow contestant Zeke Smith.
Varner, who is on the chopping block to be eliminated, said the next few words, "Zeke, why haven't you told anyone you're transgender?"
Varner explained that Smith’s “deception” "reveals the ability to deceive," which makes it a reason to expose the latter, to the shock of everyone in the group. The group, including Probst, then made Varner realize what he has done, and made it known that they will all boot him out of the reality competition.
Following the episode, Smith has since appeared on "The Talk" Thursday to share about his thoughts regarding the episode. While Smith did not anticipate his being outed as transgender in the show, he did clarified that the show’s producers had given him "unprecedented autonomy in how I wanted to tell my story."
"We started having conversations all the way back in Fiji nine months ago about the care with which this episode was going to be handled. I came to Jeff [Probst] and asked if I could write a personal essay about what happened and he immediately said yes.," he said.
However, critics were not convinced about the decision to air that moment, even if CBS and the producers of “Survivor” had worked with leading LGBT organization GLAAD to ensure Smith’s rights were served, Laura Bradley for Vanity Fair said.
Moreover, Smith seems to approve the decision to keep the moment in the episode. He added in his “The Talk” interview, “And I was really proud of how I responded. And I wanted the world to see how much I’d grown and I also thought by showing what happened, maybe it wouldn’t happen to someone else, and something good could come of it.”
