I think that cis/straight people have the wrong idea about what The Closet™ is, honestly. I frequently get asked questions like “So are you out or in the closet?” But the fact is that it doesn’t really work like that. Someone’s Out status isn’t a perfect binary that can be answered in a yes or no question. I know that movies and TV shows like to have the dramatic banner in the sky moment where they say “I’m transgender!” or “I’m bi!” and the parents find out and all the friends find out and suddenly everyone in town knows. But that’s not how coming out works for a lot of people. Coming out is not one event, rather, it’s a continuous series of many events that range from big to small throughout your life. For instance, coming out to your friends and coming out to your parents are generally two completely different decisions, and a lot of people are out to some people they know but not out to others. Some people never come out to their parents at all but they’re Out to everyone else in their life—our closets can be temporary, transient, or something that we only return to from time to time.
And then there’s the everyday closets. Do you correct the cashier when they call you sir? Do you say “my girlfriend” when you’re talking about your plans for the night with a coworker? Do you react to the “small” things like a relative asking when you’ll get a girlfriend or being called your dead name in passing? For the most part, we make decisions about Being Out every day, and often many times in a day. It happens every time we meet someone new, every time someone makes assumptions about us, every time we encounter a bigot or even another person who’s LGBT. The Closet can be a real choice for some people and if they don’t want to come out it doesn’t mean that they’re ashamed or that they aren’t proud of their identity. For other people, it’s important that they make every conscious effort to indicate their identity, be it through dress or conversation or some other way. But it’s important for cis/straight people to understand that The Closet is not a leap from people not knowing your identity to everyone knowing. Someone can be simultaneously Out and in The Closet at the same time, and most people are.
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.
Look at all their reactions tho. Can’t take that unless they were some heavy actors.
this is going to sound like such a Tumblr Story but I swear it’s happening as i type but like. outside my dorm window these guys were playing catch and they asked their friend to join him and i heard something muttered and then the other guy was like “you’re in college and you don’t know how to throw a football?” and like up in my room i was grimacing bc here come the Gay Sissy jokes obviously but instead – the kid goes “that’s okay! we’ll teach you.” and for the last hour they’ve been teaching him how to play like i’ve been listening and i guess you want to catch with your fingertips and use your elbows and bend your knees and think about your wrists and they’re …? actually being so kind and saying like ? some of the most constructive criticism i’ve ever heard surrounded by things like “oh! great job on that catch” “sweet throw! now you’re getting it!” and … my heart has never been so warm
i just wish this world like told boys… it’s okay to be like this. it’s okay to be supportive and friendly and frankly nurturing to other boys. i wish boys were allowed to be gentle and sweet and kind. boys….. be good, upturn the patriarchal standards and homophobia entrenched in this culture…. go teach a guy how to throw a ball.
UPDATE: the guy who’s teaching just said “BEAUTIFUL throw! sorry i didn’t catch it but that was PERFECT!!” and the guy who’s learning is like “?? i… i did it good??” and the first guy just says … in the most proud voice ever like .. “bro you did it GREAT” and tbh i’m gonna cry there’s too much Good here
cue madara and izuna finding out about this and bursting in guns ablaze (“oh no, the Terrible Senju Scientist Asshole Who Hates All Uchiha got his hands on one of our clan kids, we must stop his nefarious plans”) to find tobi and the kid (plus a small swarm of other kids) playing around in tobirama’s garden pond in a way that teaches chakra control in a fun way and turns everything into a giant muddy mess (and tobirama is /fine/ with this?? what???)(madara is baffled and charmed.)
This is so cute and is totally what would happen.
(Permission to try and turn this into an actual fic? Bc I have ideas and they’re not going away.)
You know what I want more of? Variety in aliens. No, I don’t mean more designs for alien species. I mean variety within a species. They always seem to have the same government, the same culture, the same religion, the same language. Come on, humans don’t work that way!
“Say, there’s a Qualar over there. What are they saying?”
“No idea.”
“What?”
“That’s a Kinzian Qualar. I’m a Surolian Qualar. You’d have just as much luck understanding them as I would. You’re lucky I even speak Human.”
“Human isn’t a language.”
“What?”
“Carl, we’ve been speaking Russian. There’s also Arabic, French, English–about a thousand others–”
“HOW DO YOU HAVE SO MANY LANGUAGES YOUR PLANET IS TINY.”
My favorite part about this is that the alien is named “Carl.”
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