#Survivor Contestant Jeff Varner Fired From His Job After Outing Fellow Player As Transgender

ByNancy Zhāng
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Survivor contestant Jeff Varner’s decision to out competitor, Zeke Smith, as transgender is having some life-changing repercussions.  

During the closing tribal council sequence — Jeff exposed Zeke‘s transgender secret (female to male transition) — in an effort to paint him as ‘deceptive.’ But the move only got Jeff booted from the reality show (without the other contestants even bothering to vote) and it’s caused him to lose his job in the real world.

https://youtu.be/QwN_zy6Q-sw

Varner was fired from his North Carolina real estate agent’s job shortly after the episode aired, reports his local News & Record newspaper of Greensboro. The controversial episode was filmed last year in Fiji.

Varner was told he was being fired for being “in the middle of a news story that” his employers “don’t want anything to do with.”

Varner, who is gay, apologized to Smith on the show and has repeatedly apologized in numerous interviews. On April 12, Jeff formally apologized again to his reality TV peer, he wrote on Twitter:

He also said that over the last ten months, he has been educating himself and working to promote LGBTQ issues, was roundly denounced after the episode aired, including a statement from GLAAD.

“Zeke Smith, and transgender people like him, are not deceiving anyone by being their authentic selves, and it is dangerous and unacceptable to out a transgender person,” said Nick Adams, director of GLAAD’s Transgender Media Program. “It is heartening, however, to see the strong support for Zeke from the other people in his tribe. Moments like this prove that when people from all walks of life get to know a transgender person, they accept us for who we are.”

Zeke has spoken out about the ugly incident — and he struggles with forgiving Varner every day.

“But I think forgiveness is about hope — hope that he understands why what he did was wrong, hope that he doesn’t ever do something like this again and hope that whatever compelled him to give into his worst instincts in a dark moment is resolved for him,” Smith told People magazine. “I do wish him the best, I just think I wish him the best from afar.”

Tell us how you feel. Could you forgive someone who revealed a personal detail about your life? Sound off in the comments below!

 

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