Survivor is my favourite show. Ever. Of all time.

Recently we had a shocking tribal council in which a Transgender player, Zeke Smith, was outed by another castaway.

Of course this was shocking because of the obvious reasons of outing someone as trans on international television, but the bigger issue for me was that Jeff Varner, the player who outed Zeke, is an older gay man.

Jeff Varner was born in 1966 and has been through the whole gay movement in America and is a huge part of the LBGTQI community in LA. The cultural movements that he was apart of were to fight for anyone who falls under these labels and fighting for human rights overall.

To see the tribal council unfold was horrible to watch but seeing the reactions of the other tribe mates and host Jeff Probst shows the change in our society. Everyone instantly condemned Jeff Varner and supported Zeke 100%. The regret on Jeff Varner’s face is visible and instant and he was voted out unanimously.

There’s no doubt that Jeff Varner did a terrible thing, but to call him out as a horrible person and to hate him is wrong. Survivor puts the contestants in an extreme position and he did what he thought was right. Combined with the fact that Jeff Varner has played this game three times, the added pressure to do well just got to him. I went through a wide range of emotions watching that tribal council, and I have come to terms with what happened and I forgive Varner for his actions. The human emotion was portrayed so well that the producers achieved their goal of audience affect, in my opinion.

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/survivor-contestants-deal-with-the-aftermath-of-transgender-outing/news-story/32534564936a6890f74164cb0ec592ca