political opinions & societal rants

'outing' a transgender

if you've seen entertainment news recently, you may have seen the news about a contestant of survivor 'outing' a contestant about being transgender, in front of national television. jeff varner, the one who outed the other contestant, has been fired from his job in a disgust and has since apologised to zeke smith, the transgender contestant.

varner's argument was that, the fact that smith was able to hide the fact that he's transgender means that he has the ability to be deceptive and cunning. their other contestants (tribemates), were upset and protesting against varner, who kept arguing his point. even the host, jeff probst, who arguably is one os the most impartial hosts and rarely, if not never, gives his own opinion, was seemingly shocked and upset.

i have a few opinions on these events, and let me start with explaining my situation and experience. i've been watching survivor for about seven years now, and have since watched all 33 seasons, 34 now. i've watched betrayal after backstab, lies and deceit, but this by far was probably the most terrible move yet. personally, i have a transgender cousin in the family. he's now about 28 and has been transgender since 22. he is currently dating a woman and is very happy.

now, varner and smith were both gay, and varner felt it appropriate for him to expose something that smith told him to help the bond between them grow, just to further him in the game.

onto the main part of this whole story. without their consent, outing a trans is never okay. it is their choice on if they want to do it and when they want to do it. you have no rights to reveal it. if they told you this and did not tell anyone else, you can safely assume that they trust you, and if you 'out' them, you're breaking that trust.

the same thing goes for being gay, bisexual, asexual, whatever. in the end, it all comes down to being a trustworthy person and not discrimination. it sounds cliche and a bad end to the opinion but you can out someone without meaning any harm, but if they didn't consent, you have harmed them and it is not right.