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If there’s one factor Survivor just isn’t recognized for, it is readability. With deception and manipulation lurking round each nook, good gamers rapidly study to not belief or consider something … and that the one one you possibly can really consider in is your self.

That introspective nature of the present, the place castaways spend a lot of their time with the one individual they will really consider in (themselves!), was actually part of it for Teeny. But additionally a part of it was how a lot their presence impacted the viewing viewers — after which vice-versa.

In a brand new essay penned for Cosmopolitan, Teeny is placing an finish to lots of the questions and speculations followers had about their time on the island, and an exclamation level on solutions they did not even know on the time — together with in the event that they have been, the truth is, nonbinary.

The 24-year-old actuality star — who now makes use of he/they pronouns — is moving into the following chapter of his life as a trans man, and he has the present, its followers, and most people’s curiosity about his journey, to thank largely for that readability he did not even totally know he wanted on the time.

For Teeny, it began as an avalanche even earlier than he’d returned from his time in Fiji, the place Survivor is filmed. He was nonetheless in flight when the primary promo for Season 47 aired. When he lastly landed, and was capable of reconnect with the digital world, he was instantly overwhelmed.

“I opened my telephone to search out lots of of individuals speaking about my five-second cameo within the promo,” Teeny wrote, sharing that folks have been beside themselves speculating on every little thing from how he can be gendered as a nonbinary contestant to “how the producers have been going to adapt, inside the parameters of traditionally gendered tribe divisions.”

“Through the 11-hour flight, I waded via debates over my pronouns, whether or not I’d ‘depend’ as a woman or a boy or each or neither, if I had a penis, and (my private favourite) if I had tboy swag or nonbinary tea,” he added.

Teeny stated that it wasn’t the “invasive questions on my biology” that hit hardest, however relatively “the stress for me to characterize as the primary brazenly nonbinary Survivor participant.”

The issue was that Teeny “by no means declared something [to producers] that may point out I wasn’t a cisgender woman.”

Certain, Teeny on the present was androgynous of their model, and had even talked about having a session for high surgical procedure earlier than flying out to compete, however they’d by no means actually outlined their identification. That stated, it did not appear to matter.

With no prompting in any respect, Teeny shared that on day three of the competitors, contestant Sol Yi informed them in a personal dialog, “You realize, I needed to ask you earlier than the sport began if you need me to make use of completely different pronouns than she/her.”

The dialog was occurring merely based mostly on how Teeny offered. As a deliberate microcosm of society, the social experiment that’s Survivor nearly made this inevitable, because it’s pure for individuals to be curious, and in the very best circumstances, to wish to be respectful about it.

The issue was that whereas Sol was able to have that dialog, he was doing so on the belief that Teeny would have a solution to his query. However Teeny wasn’t there but in their very own life.

“Earlier than flying out, I made a alternative: I wasn’t able to launch into labeling myself any which approach for the primary time on nationwide tv,” Teeny admitted in his essay. Actually, not going there was a part of their pre-game technique.

“I knew I might enter Survivor enjoying a social recreation. Attempting to experience the center, to maintain all my alliances open, to be myself (or an edited model of it),” he defined. “And to win that recreation, I believed, I might conceal the components that felt too susceptible for public consumption.”

And the fact was that “an intense recreation of social politics and hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide felt like a scary time to come back out as…I did not even know what.”

He even admitted that if he have been to ask his tribe to make use of any pronoun aside from she/her on the island, it might “trigger individuals to panic about messing up.” And on Survivor, that might be sufficient for them to only ship Teeny dwelling, as a result of it might all simply be simpler then.

Teeny did open to her tribe on the island a bit about the place they have been at of their life journey when it got here to their relationship with their breasts, sharing “how my boobs have been part of my physique that I might by no means needed,” and so they’d worn a chest binder for the previous two years.

In his essay, he wrote that he talked about “how humorous it was that my tits’ ultimate act on Earth was operating round a jungle mendacity to individuals,” whereas joking that he was “giving my boobs one final deal with earlier than I put them down by sporting a sports activities bra … Chest binding on a abandoned island for 25 days is a no-go.”

The larger actuality, although, was that Teeny wasn’t actually given a lot of a alternative. Just by being there, they invited the dialog, whether or not they have been prepared for it or not. And if not on the island, actually among the many viewers after returning stateside.

After grappling with their gender identification on the island — amongst rather more urgent considerations alongside their solution to a Prime 4 end — Teeny stated that the dialog was solely getting louder after he returned dwelling and waited for the season to air.

“And thus started one other recreation of identification I’ve discovered myself enjoying nearly as if I’’ nonetheless on that seashore,” he wrote. “Not less than on Survivor, there is a million-dollar prize.”

The issue was that whereas the season started airing, everybody at dwelling began having questions and eager to know what was occurring with this nonbinary contestant. “My lack of readability appeared to bleed via the display and infect the entire commentators of the present with the identical confusion I used to be feeling inside,” wrote Teeny.

As the sport progressed, Sol’s query appeared to echo all through Teeny’s world, from “two to 3 minutes spent debating what current-day Teeny needed to go by” on Survivor podcasts to buddies “beginning to shift the language they used for me, a few of them feeling like they’d missed the chapter the place I correctly got here out as nonbinary.”

Uncertain himself about what was going to unfold as every episode aired, Teeny stated he dropped “she/they/he” pronouns on his Instagram “and watched as individuals replied forwards and backwards, correcting after which recorrecting, on my behalf.”

One second of readability that didn’t come till late into their time on the island, was Teeny coming to know their aggressive animosity towards fellow contestant Sam Phalen, “which I solely realized and owned was dysphoria-induced jealousy within the ultimate levels of the sport.”

The stresses of the sport have been impacted Teeny’s stresses of non-public identification, which carried into the post-game expertise of watching it again and attempting to work together in the actual world — whereas probably not with the ability to speak about it.

“I could not break my NDA, could not communicate over a previous model of myself, could not put up a caption that made all of it make sense,” Teeny lamented in his essay.

And as Teeny’s considerably polarizing TV persona turned the dialog whereas the season was airing, Teeny tried to counter that by turning into extra “palatable to everybody,” answering with a “no matter” once they tried to be delicate about his pronoun preferences.

It was additionally a protection mechanism of types, to keep away from dealing with the gateway dialog that pronouns typically result in, the “customized gender research curriculum that cycles via my head nearly consistently.”

“The state of my life since Survivor has been stuffed with uncertainty,” Teeny admitted, with the surprising scrutiny about his pronouns pushing him into the recesses of his personal thoughts, the place it surprisingly “pulled my identification into focus, contained in the museum of my very own transness.”

Teeny unpacked their very own exploration of identification through the years, from a “rising stack of trans memoirs on my nightstand” to “ninth-grade hours spent writing Wattpad tales from the male POV” to “tboys in my telephone instructing me crop my shirts for a extra masculine match.”

A part of that journey noticed Teeny solidifying his difficult relationship together with his breasts by going via with the highest surgical procedure he’d talked about on the island, and regarded via earlier than.

He opened up about this process with Them again in January, although even at the moment, he did not but have certainty that he was a transgender man. Whereas he knew he had a surgical procedure date whereas on the island, “there was additionally this weirdness the place I wasn’t out totally as nonbinary,” Teeny informed the outlet.

Like a lot of his journey to that time, Teeny was simply sort of flying by the seat of his pants, doing what felt proper and never worrying about labels or what it meant on a deeper stage.

As that readability solidified inside, Teeny continued to “no matter” on the skin, however how lengthy was that sustainable? And what did it actually imply?

“My noncommitment to a label like nonbinary and my lack of attachment to the policing of my very own pronouns is as a result of till proper now, I had been a closeted trans man,” Teeny wrote of that realization.

However even that comes with its personal fears, the fears of popping out publicly, at new jobs, “grandma studying this and her questioning if it means I’ll have a mustache subsequent Christmas.”

From small issues like questioning if his buddies will “flinch” once they inevitably use the fallacious pronoun, to extra critical points like “how a lot testosterone will price, even with medical health insurance.”

After which, there’s the world of 2025. “I’m fascinated by how a lot I will miss the ladies’ lavatory if I begin to go,” Teeny wrote, earlier than including, “I am fascinated by whether or not passing as a cis man is even one thing I need.”

“I am fascinated by all of the trans individuals who have been courageous sufficient to stay of their authenticity via the horrors of our previous and present political state and the way a lot I like and thank them for paving the way in which for me,” he continued. “I am considering and I will possible by no means cease.”

However with that considering has come a choice to cease “no matter”-ing via life. Cease attempting to appease others as he is realized “attempting to please everybody as this moldable gender putty is not pleasing me.”

Extra importantly, Teeny realized, “it’s not what anybody is asking of me.” And with nobody watching him on TV anymore, he can solely look again and thank the present for serving to him discover his approach, and making it a bit of simpler to get right here.

“Although on the time it felt like an excessive stress to be this genderfluid consultant,” Teeny wrote, “what it actually did was open the door for everybody in my life to know I am not cisgender with out my having to provoke these conversations.”

“There isn’t a promo coming this spring to point out me sitting on a rock with some beard stubble rising in and a deeper voice,” he added. “There’s no one who may be the architect of this outing moreover me.”