Host Mel Woods looks back at the history of queer reality TV; they speak with one of its true survivors, Zeke Smith.
Overview
In this episode, host Mel Woods delves into the crucial topic of queer and trans representation in reality TV, beginning with notable moments like Zeke Smith’s groundbreaking transouting on Survivor and the impact of Pedro Zamora on HIV/AIDS awareness during Season One of The Real World: San Francisco. The discussion features an interview with Zeke, who reflects on his journey since Survivor, including insights into the motivations and strategies behind his participation in the show. The episode also tackles various coming out experiences on reality TV, emphasizing the challenges and significance of authentic representation. Finally, it analyzes the evolution of queer representation over time, highlighting key milestones and the need for more casual portrayals of queerness in media.
Notes
Reality TV and LGBTQ2S+ Representation (00:00 - 09:16)
Zeke Smith's Survivor Experience (09:16 - 17:30)
Coming Out on Reality TV (17:30 - 26:08)
Impact and Evolution of Queer Representation (26:08 - 34:56)
Guest
Zeke Smith (he/him) is a writer and comedian living in Los Angeles. His writing has been featured in The Blacklist and in The Hollywood Reporter. Zeke is well-known for his queer and trans advocacy stemming from two seasons on Survivor. He serves on the board of directors for GLAAD.
00:00
Mel Woods
It’s 2017 and Survivor is airing its 34th season. Titled Game Changers, the series features a cast of returning favorites all vying for that all-important title of Sole Survivor. On day 18 at Tribal Council, contestant Jeff Varner, an openly gay 50-year-old real estate agent, is scrambling to not get voted out. He pivots to an accusation of one of his fellow tribe members speaking to host Jeff Probst.
00:33
Voiceover
There is deception here. Yeah, deception on levels, Jeff, that these guys don’t even understand.
00:39
Mel Woods
He turns to fellow contestant Zeke Smith, who’s 29 and fresh off the previous season of the show: Millennials versus Gen X.
00:46
Voiceover
Why haven’t you told anyone you’re transgender?
00:52
Mel Woods
I’ll never forget watching that happen from my dorm room in Calgary, Alberta, where I was a university student at the time. Or the pang of recognition I didn’t even realize was recognition back then. I hadn’t seen a lot of transmasc folks on TV before and now I found out that this funny guy I’d watched for two back-to-back seasons on a survival reality show was trans. And I and millions of people found out in the same awful way. Varner got quickly voted off, but the impact of his actions on me, so deep in the closet at the time I didn’t even know it. And a generation of queer and trans folks is undeniable. What does it mean to be outed on national TV and how does reality TV show us the, well, reality of being queer or trans? I’m Mel Woods.
01:45
Mel Woods
This season on Get Queer, we’re looking at queer reality TV and how we got here. From Pedro to Zeke and from RuPaul to Chrishell and G Flip. Where it came from, how it showed us to the world and to ourselves and where it got us. We’ll talk to real-life reality TV game changers like Zeke himself and experts on how reality TV shaped queer and trans rights over the past three decades. Episode one, “Casually Queer.” Now let’s go back to 1993, before I was even born. Queer reality TV as we know it was freshly hatched as something called The Real World.
02:29
Voiceover
This is the true story …
02:32
Voiceover
Of seven strangers picked to live in …
02:35
Voiceover
A house and have their lives changed …
02:39
Voiceover
To find out what happens when people …
02:41
Voiceover
Stop being polite and start getting real. The Real World: San Francisco.
02:48
Mel Woods
On the first episode of season three, Pedro Zamora, a 22-year-old gay man from Miami, Florida, comes out as HIV-positive to his new roommates, to America and to the world. Things got real. Things got queer. And not just on the show, but in the real world too. By speaking openly about his sexuality, his status and his activism, Pedro showed us how reality television could change the world. Near the end of that first episode of The Real World: San Francisco, Pedro Zamora tells us that he’s been very concerned about how his new roommates are going to react to him being HIV-positive, and, in his words, how they were going to find out. He decided to make it low-key. No big announcement. He just produced a scrapbook of clippings he’d been keeping, detailing his accomplishments as an HIV-positive speaker and activist.
03:41
Mel Woods
The cast reacted in character. For the San Francisco and L.A. kids, it was no big deal. From the big-hearted liberals of New York and California, there were hugs and sympathy. And the young Republican from Arizona complained later about wanting to ask questions about her safety, but didn’t want to be accused of being a, quote, “bitch.” The world, or at least the American world, was represented. Later that season, there would be a famous fight—number seven on TIME magazine’s “32 Epic Moments in Reality-TV History”—where attention-hungry bike courier Puck would accuse Pedro of heterophobia.
04:17
Voiceover
I think you are heterophobic for all the homophobic you just told him.
04:25
Voiceover
And you know what? You’re probably right. You know, and first of all, I was not the one who brought the homophobia, it was somebody else. You’re probably right. You know, I do have some, you know, racism in me. I do have some sexism, which is the first thing that is that you don’t give a shit about what I feel.
04:42
Mel Woods
That was the fight that had Puck evicted from the house. It was very real. And even realer was when later that season, Pedro and his partner Sean Sasser were married in The Real World house, the first same-sex marriage ever televised. In June of ’94, after five months in The Real World house, the cast departed. And by August of that year, Pedro was admitted to hospital with AIDS-related difficulties and remained in care until he died that November. In memorializing him, President Bill Clinton said of Pedro on MTV, “He jolted our country awake.” And at his public memorial, “Now no one in America can say they’ve never known someone who’s living with AIDS.”
05:22
Mel Woods
That was 1994, the year before I was born. I wasn’t there for that moment, but I still feel its effects today. It changed the game. Pedro’s story was about activism and courage and honesty. Pedro was one of the first people the world met who was casually queer, and reality TV, you know—the trash and schlock that we often like to make fun of—is full of those sorts of impactful moments. For a lot of people, it’s the first place they consciously see and empathize with real people who aren’t like themselves. Or if you’re like me, it’s where you see yourself without even realizing it. If we’re going to talk about coming out, I guess we’ll start with me. I’m getting to be an expert in coming out. I’ve done it a lot. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert of reality television.
06:17
Mel Woods
Our producer calls me an aficionado and I’m not sure I’d agree. But I would say it’s been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up just outside of Red Deer, Alberta, an oil town in the heart of the Canadian prairies. The classic Capital-B big reality competition shows were on a constant rotation in my house from Big Brother to Survivor and American Idol. And yes, I downloaded every Adam Lambert performance as soon as they aired to put on my iPod Classic. But the show of shows at my house was So You Think You Can Dance? Admittedly, because my sister and I were both dance kids. But looking back now at my obsession over Sasha Mallory and Melanie Moore on season eight, I can now recognize what was a crush.
07:02
Mel Woods
I mean, I made a lot of fan art about them, and I wasn’t out as any sort of queer and neither were either of them. But Sasha has since come out as queer. But there was something I connected to in this one routine that they did together. Set to “Ggame Oon” by District 78. It was a jazz routine and the pair of them slice across the stage as these sort of alien warriors. It’s sexy and strong and powerful and it was totally enrapturing to my 16- year- old self. The guest judge that night was Lady Gaga, and this was her response after a standing ovation and ecstatically throwing her shoe at the stage.
07:46
Voiceover
I don’t know what songsex you are, I don’t know what race you are. I don’t know where you’re from, how much money you have, where you came from. All I know is that was the future and that’s all that matters. You were born this way. You are absolutely incredible.
08:04
Mel Woods
It was incredibly pointed for Gaga to say “born this way” in 2011, while her song of the same name was topping the charts. The year New York was the sixth state to allow same- sex marriage. The year that was the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the year that NPR called an extraordinary year for gay rights. We all know what that song’s about and we know what she’s saying to Sasha and Melanie and to mainstream America. So no one officially came out, but something was acknowledged. The show kept cutting to choreographer Sonya Taya Teyah sitting in the audience with her date Ellen beside her. Like we all knew. What we knew was simply confirmed. But what about when we don’t know? What if we don’t have any idea. What if it’s a full- on coming out pushed upon us?.
09:02
Mel Woods
Let’s go back to Survivor, to Jeff VFarner, an out gay man, and his outing of Zeke.
09:10
Voiceover
There is deception here. Yeah, deception on levels, Jeff, that these guys don’t even understand. There’s more.
09:18
Voiceover
Continue.
09:19
Voiceover
Why haven’t you told anyone you’re transgender?
09:24
Mel Woods
That silence. 10 Ten seconds of silence. One of the most popular shows on primetime network television.
09:33
Voiceover
What I’m showing is a deception. But that’s personal. It has nothing to do with the game.
09:40
Voiceover
Personal.
09:40
Voiceover
You didn’t have to do that.
09:42
Voiceover
That is so wrong. We are YouTube.
09:44
Mel Woods
Zeke had just played on the previous season. He was respected by his castmates, admired by the host, and loved by fans. I was one of them. As soon as he appeared on that previous season with his jaunty moustache and bright floral shirt, I felt a connection and resonance. And now Varner, someone that Zeke had felt close to and confided in, was using the game against Zeke in a potentially dangerous way. This was a huge cultural moment for the queer community, for the gay community, and especially for the trans community. And for reality television, ; for television. And for me, only a few years later, I’d have my own trans coming out. Not forced on TVtv, but certainly influenced by seeing Zeke and what happened. Seeing this guy who looked like me, who felt like me, but also a me I didn’t know yet.
10:40
Mel Woods
A possibility model, if you will. But for Zeke in that moment, it was just that silence. The rest of the tribe, Jeff Probst, and what comes next.
10:53
Zeke Smith
And it was just sort of like the world stopped. And now I have learned that I was in the medical condition called shock, mild shock, because it felt like I was aware that everything was going on, but also it felt like I was watching a movie.
11:12
Mel Woods
More with Zeke Smith after this. This is Get Queer. I’m Mel Woods. This season we’re talking queer voices and visibility in reality tvTV. And today my guest is speaker, comic advocate, game changer, survivor contestant, newlywed, and fun- shirt expert Zeke Smith.
11:36
Zeke Smith
Here’s the thing. I really feel like I started like all trans guys. Now now—they dress exactly like me. I dress like that from the Beginning beginning now, everybody dresses that way. And I feel like I am an unacknowledged fashion icon.
11:47
Mel Woods
I mean, genuinely, as somebody who was deeply in the closet when I watched you on Survivor and was like, why do I love this funny guy with a fun shirt? I own so many fun shirts. It is a thing. But the. The fun- pattern button- up is an important icon of the queer community broadly, but yes, specifically the transmasc community. And. , And and I think it’s fair. , I think it’s fair to attribute your. , Your your important role in paving that. —
12:10
Mel WoodsZeke Smith
In paving that,I in at least evangelizing it. You know, maybe I’m not Jesus, but I’m certainly, you know, Paul, if Zeke..
12:19
Mel Woods
If Zeke iIs the fun- shirt Jesus for trans masc folks everywhere, then call me a disciple as both that closeted college kid watching him get outed, and now a fully fledged transmasc funny guy in a fun shirt myself. Getting to chat with Zeke about not only his Survivor experience, but his time after, was a dream.
12:40
Mel Woods
And also, like, congrats on getting married.
12:44
Zeke Smith
Thank you very much.
12:45
Mel Woods
I got engaged actually just a couple months ago, and so.
12:48
Zeke Smith
Oh, well, congratulations to you.
12:50
Mel Woods
Thank you all. All gGay wedding content is very high on my consumption list right now. And so it has been a delight to see all the coverage of your wedding. And yeah, just see everybody be so excited about that. I mean, going all the way back to, like, the pProposal at the GLAAD Awards and everything.
13:05
Zeke Smith
And now we’re married, five and a half years later. But I think that, you know, Nico and I actually, this is sort of what I talked about in my wedding vows is that, you know, we both met at high points in our life. I was just coming off Survivor. I had conquered all these fears. I had had, you know, this, you know, adventure that really was transformative. And on top of the adventure, I’d had this sort of catastrophe, which was able to turn into a triumph and was sort of at my most confident and happiest that I had been in a while. And he was going into the fourth season of a major network sitcom. He was about to have this movie called Crazy Rich Asians come out.
13:52
Zeke Smith
We were both people who have had long journeys with learning to love ourselves and love our bodies and allow ourselves to be loved. And were sort of like at the best moments we could meet in our lives in order to be open for another person to come and love us.
14:06
Mel Woods
It’s nice to have a nice story in the world right now in these bad times.
14:11
Zeke Smith
And thank you. And that was important to us. I mean, it was the most incredible experience. I mean, I was not someone who really thought about, like, doing a big wedding until that’s what we did. Nor did I have any expectation about it being, like, the best day of my life. But it really, it was. It was magical. The people we worked with were all so talented and so incredible and so just, like, on board with our vision from the get- go, which was just to have the queerest, coolest, best party for all the people that we love and none of the people that we just felt mediocre about, including family. And I think everyone brought it.
14:49
Mel Woods
You mentioned being on the board for GLAAD. You know, for other folks who maybe only know you as Zeke from Survivor, what else have you been kind of up to in the last few years? You got married, you’re on the board of GLAAD. What does your kind of life and work look like now that you are not just Zeke from Survivor to so many people?
15:07
Zeke Smith
I have a book in the works that I can’t quite talk about just yet, but I have been fiddling around with for some time, and I’m very excited for when I can finally talk about it. I was just listening to a podcast before I hopped on this call, and it was, you know, drag queens my age saying that on TikTok, which I’m not on, that Gen Zers make fun of millennials for saying “adulting.” And that is still a phrase that I intellectually, I understand. Like, when you’re transitioning from being someone who lived in an apartment in their 20s and did improv and then decided to go on reality television and, you know, whatever, right? To being someone who’s married and owns a home and lives in a nice little neighbourhood.
15:50
Zeke Smith
Like, that takes up a lot of time, you know, not that I don’t make tons of time to go skiing and hiking and, you know, go get in trouble at gay bars and all of that stuff as well, I revisit.
16:04
Mel Woods
I revisit, And and it’ll come up in this conversation a lot. , I think that Hollywood Reporter piece that you wrote after the Survivor episode about kind of that sentiment you have about kind of wanting to be seen as just some dude and, like, existing in the world and, you know, being casually trans the way that Zac Efron is casually Jewish or whatever like that.
16:23
Zeke Smith
Yeah.
16:24
Mel Woods
Oh, yeah. You’re just a guy with a house and a husband and hobbies and a job.
16:30
Zeke Smith
For those of us who never had representation either in the media, but more importantly, in, like, our lives, there were no happy queer couples in Edmond, Oklahoma, who I could model fFamily structure on. They were men and women who got married right out of the sorority and fraternity house and started popping out kids and never had any intentionality in what they wanted to do or who they wanted to be or how they wanted to create their families. They just did what was done before them because that’s what you did, and you just didn’t think about it. And none of them seemed particularly happy. None of it. , tThat . … tThat life seemed appealing to me at all. But then there was also no alternative. So you move away, you become a queer young adult, and you’re . …
17:14
Zeke Smith
You’re like, well, fuck marriage, and marriage isn’t radical and queer, and da, dadi-di-di-di-da. And, you know, you go and you live in a big city and you run around and you have fun with your friends and you whatever. And then I think you get to a point where should you be so lucky to. , sSo fortunate to, you know, create a romantic partnership with someone that you love dearly and want to share your life with? You start to understand why society has created some of these foundations. You’re like, oh, yes, I get this— partnership is nice. There. There is something beautiful hidden under, like, the heterosexual terror that I assumed domesticity involved.
17:56
Mel Woods
Okay, so now we’ll go back in time, we’ll go to the Ssurvivor of it all. What kind of made you say, “I’m going to go be on reality TVtv. That’s the choice for me.”
18:05
Zeke Smith
So, I went to college. I was like, oh, I’m finally going to get to be like, you know, the big dyke on campus. And immediately all the queer kids are like, “Ooh, are you trans?” And I’m like, “Wwell, fuck you. Because I’ve already come from being the most marginalized person in my high school. I don’t want to sign up to do that again.” And so it took two years of sort of coming, you know, understanding what that was and coming to terms with, you know, being trans. And, you know, I transitioned, I like to say, before Chaz Bono hit the scene. And he is, I think, kind of a landmark person for most people of understanding, like, who trans men are. And, you know, that trans men, there is a transition process for us as well.
18:45
Zeke Smith
And so it was really hard because no one understood what was going on. Everybody had an opinion about it. And because my parents, it’s not like they were. , tThey were condemning and like, “Nno, you can’t do this, or we’re going to cut you off.” They were just like, “I don’t know. Are you sure? What’s going on? This is crazy.” I was very depressed. I was very failed by the mental health system at my college, and ultimately, I had to leave for a year. And while I was away, I watched Survivor. While I was recovering from chest surgery, I watched Survivor. I didn’t really have any friends. I didn’t really have anyone I could talk to. I was very disappointed in myself at, you know, what was supposed to be, like, the best four years of my life really being a pretty terrible experience.
19:30
Zeke Smith
And I watched Survivor, and it made me happy, and it gave me hope for the future. And it made me think, I wanna be that mentally strong, that I could do Survivor, that I could withstand anything. I wanna be that physically fit where I could go out there and I could do all those challenges. It’s what I wanted. But of course, you know, I was a trans person that was never gonna be on the docket. I go back, I finish school, I moved to New York, I have jobs, I started doing improv. I don’t wanna tell anybody I’m trans because that did not go well in college. And I’m just very happy being Zeke the Dude. And then I’m, you know, I think 26 or 27. And I’ve been having so much fun doing comedy these past years. But I. …
20:19
Zeke Smith
At [a]t a point, you’re like, I have to think about the future, and what kind of future is there for me if I let being trans hold me back from doing what I want in the world? And if I asked myself, and I remember I was just walking downstairs, like, if you could do any. —iIf. , iIf being trans was not a factor, if you could do anything in the world, what would you do? And it was, I would apply for Survivor. And so I did. I made a video. Do not talk about being trans. They call me. Two hours later, we start the casting rigmarole. As we get deeper into the casting process, I do let them know that I’m trans. And, you know, they play it very cool, but clearly, they’re interested. And, you know, before I know it, I’m in Fiji.
21:00
Zeke Smith
And I worked very hard because I felt like, even though I did not want my being trans to be the headline of my Survivor experience, that it would become known at some point that I am a trans person. That’s not generally something that the media looks over. And so I needed to represent. I got so physically fit, anything I could anticipate doing on Survivor, I tried to replicate in Brooklyn. So I was like, let’s be intentional about this, right? Being good at things, being good at puzzles, being, you know, having secret knowledge about how to build the shelter and how to do the fire, right? Like, these are all good, interesting moments because I’m not the type of person you would think would be able to do that. So, in the show, I’m sort of like, I didn’t know I could do this.
21:47
Zeke Smith
I just know how to ride the subway. No. I had been practiscing for months about how to make the fucking fire on my fire escape, right? But the story, what makes it interesting is not that you had done that. What makes it interesting is, oh, people don’t think the goofy guy with the moustache and the shirt, he made the fire. —tThat’s so incredible!. And I especially, because I did not want to talk about being trans, and I knew that they really wanted me to talk about being trans, felt that I needed to create these story moments and sort of have these story goals for myself so that there were other interesting things going on where there was story happening and the story didn’t need to be that. I was transparent I was trans.
22:23
Mel Woods
What strikes me most about talking to Zeke is that he didn’t want to be the trans Survivor guy. And yet he became that for reasons beyond his control. But he also recognizes the positive impact and influence his visibility has had. On the day after that episode where Varner outed him aired, Zeke published an essay in the Hollywood Reporter explaining how he felt in that moment and what he hoped viewers would take away from it. It’s a piece of writing that I revisited often on my own trans journey. Watching Zeke on Survivor was this experience of seeing someone who felt familiar to me in a way I couldn’t place, and who I gravitated towards and felt affinity for before he was even outed. The article from the Hollywood Reporter really influenced me.
23:07
Mel Woods
He had found such joy and community in both Survivor and transitioning, and seeing this person who was real, who I’d grown to love over two seasons of TVtv, speak so candidly in ways that connected to a part of me that I didn’t even know was there, helped crack that egg, or coconut, so to speak. This was 2017, so I would have been 22. Zeke was one of the first trans mascs people I really related to. In the subsequent year or two, as I processed my big trans feelings to the point of figuring it out and coming out, I kept coming back to that essay and the image of him and thinking I could be like that,. I could wear my patterned shirts and grow a moustache and be that dude. And now in some ways, I am. And in some ways, I’m still becoming.
24:01
Mel Woods
In talking with Zeke, when I hear how mMuch he’s changed and grown in the years since his time on Survivor,. I also see my future just the same way I saw my possibility in him in the past. But beyond the personal impacts on himself and the little baby transes like me, Zeke also recognized the impact his outing would have on the big rolling reality TV machine.
24:29
Zeke Smith
You know, those 11 days that I existed after being outed, those were my hardest and mostly favourite days of Survivor. And I was trying my best to seem like I was fine, even though I was very much not fine. And, you know, I wasn’t gonna quit, but I was not running at the same speed that I was before. And the way they chose to motivate me was very cruel. They were like, “Wwell, like, you know, when things get hard, you don’t really seem to rise up to the challenge, do you?” Or, like, “Mman, when it gets this deep into the game, you really seem to lose a lot of steam, right?” Like, sort of this challenge to my masculinity, this, you know, sort of acting disappointed in me, it really fed the spiralling. I think positive reinforcement could have been much more effective.
25:21
Zeke Smith
But, yeah, I think somebody should have done something to get me voted out earlier than I was or what have you. But, you know, leaving me out there to fester with a bunch of reality alumni was not,. Was was probably not the decision most medical professionals would have made about my mental state at the time. Pretty quickly after I got voted out and got back to Ponderosa, you know, I had to meet with a therapist every day, which was, you know, was good. And that was one of my first questions was like, “Wwhat are we going to do about all, you know, this is. I’m gonna have been on television for a season and a half, and then this thing is gonna happen in this epic way and my life is gonna change forever.” Like, it was, like, we just all knew.
26:06
Zeke Smith
And then she was like, “Wwell, what do you want?” And I was like, “I wanna write something.” And then I sent a draft of the article around January, I think, to Probst, and the first draft, he was like, “Tthis is wonderful. I didn’t realize that you were this good of a writer. also.Also, I want you to write something completely different.” Because I didn’t have a sense of, like, I was operating from my mind of people are gonna know I’m trans and then everyone’s gonna hate me or, you know, people are gonna buy into this deception thing. And I. —iIt was a very. , You you know, and he was like, “Llook, you know, here’s how my mom is gonna react to this. Here’s how, like, the average Ssurvivor person, like, people are not gonna react to this the way that you think they are.”
26:47
Zeke Smith
“And so you need to write something that’s gonna be on tone with what happened and how people are going to react.” As I tell a lot of the people who start transitioning, particularly as adults who are around me, is that your goal the first two years is just to stay alive? Don’t think you need to be involved in activism and whatever else? No, the goal the first two years is to stay alive. And I think because those first two years are so difficult, being able to look and see that there is a life beyond this, that this is not the rest of your life. This is just a moment, and then the whole rest of your life is ahead of you. And you can do whatever stupid thing you want to do, like go on reality television.
27:30
Zeke Smith
You know, it’s not just like you have to go do brilliant things. You can do stupid shit. You can do irresponsible things, whatever it is. But life is yours to choose and make the most of it as you will. It will not always feel like being trans. iIs this, like, daily activity that can sometimes beautiful and then sometimes feel like you’re carrying weights around with you? , You you know, ? Sso much of our uphill battle is that people have all these preconceived notions of who trans people are from terrible representations in film and television. And what reality television, again, allows us to do is not only speak authentically to other queer and trans people who need to see us, but.
28:14
Zeke Smith
bBut also it provides a counterweight to this image, you know, this narrative that is created by our foes, that we are trans as a means of, you know, spreading this ideology, if you will. I think when you meet everyday trans people and see that we’re just as boring as everyone else, that’s helpful.
28:37
Mel Woods
Ask any queer or trans person, and we’ll tell you that coming out isn’t a singular thing. The first time I came out was as bisexual to my best friend in my second year of undergrad over lunch at Denny’s on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve come out infinite times since, whether it’s to loved ones and friends or the cashier at the grocery store. But do I really need to come out? Did Pedro, who lived openly outside of the structure of the show, even actually come out on Tthe Real World? Did Zeke come out? And is it coming out when the choice is taken away from you? If you’re looking for the OG reality TV coming out, you’ll likely be pointed to Lance Loud. January to March 1973.
29:23
Mel Woods
The media event everybody seemed to be talking about was An American Family on PBS. 12 Twelve one- hour episodes watching Pat and Bill Loud and their five kids in a cinema veritée fly- on- the- wall, no- narration TV series that many say birthed the reality genre. And if An American Family was the OG reality show, Pat and Bill’s son Lance Lloud was the OG reality queer. In episode two, Lance is 19 and living in New York at the Chelsea Hotel when Mom mom Pat comes to visit.
29:57
Voiceover
Do you want to go upstairs? Okay.
29:59
Voiceover
I hope that my room is as elegant as yours..
30:01
Voiceover
Elegant as yours, Mmy dear. , iIt’s much more elegant.
30:04
Voiceover
I’m determined.
30:05
Voiceover
Right after you called and they said yes. , I said, “Wwe want on this floor and we want this and that. I want it facing this side.” So anyway, he was such a creep. I hate people that are just like limp flowers or something. And he would just, “Wwell, I haven’t decided on it yet.” I said, “Wwell, you’ll have to do it soon.” So I came down and he was very. , hHe just handed me a key and said, “Ggo and look at this one.” And so it was on. —
30:29
Voiceover
You tell him it was for your straight mother?.
30:30
Voiceover
I said it was for my mother.
30:32
Voiceover
She has to have a good room.
30:36
Mel Woods
Searches will tell you that. Lance was the first coming out on television, and some people remember it that way. But for Lance, it was more, quote, “out of laziness than activism.” That’s how he put it in an essay he wrote for Tthe Advocate a few months before his death in 2001 at the age of 50. In it, he says of his time on the show, quote, “I made no secret of my homosexuality, a feat considered brave at the time.” Rrather than a coming out. , hHe describes it as being, quote, “merely myself.” Up to that point, queerness on television had been represented by bachelors and female impersonators and victims and memorably, on Angie Dickinson’s Police Wwoman, a lesbian gang who runs a nursing home. There was nothing casual about it.
31:26
Mel Woods
But suddenly there was Pedro’s reveal on Tthe Real World by showing his housemates a scrapbook of clippings, Gaga’s perceiving queerness in Sasha and Melanie and stating it as simple fact. Zeke’s aspiration for living casually t. Trans. Lance camping it up with his mom. People living merely queer. We hadn’t really seen that before. And it was on queer reality TV that real people got to just live our lives, whatever they may be, and have millions of people see and understand and connect to us. Ffrom moments like this. oOn Tthe Rreal World in 1993. : Can I have everyone’s attention, please.
32:07
Voiceover
Can I have everyone’s attention, please? . We’d like to welcome you today for coming into our house. And we’re very pleased to have you all here to celebrate the relationship that we have with two incredible people. We’re gonna have a few words, and then we’ll have the exchange of rings.
32:25
Voiceover
Those of us who live here, many of us who know Pedro and Sean, have had the privilege of watching this relationship blossom. And I remember quite clearly Pedro going on that first date. And I asked him, “Sso is it a date?” “No, it’s not a date. We’re just going out.” But when he came back that evening, it was indeed a date.
32:52
Voiceover
So.
32:52
Voiceover
So now, here we are, these many months later, for this wonderful day.
32:59
Mel Woods
And for moments like that, we get moments like this. With Zeke and his partner, Nico, presenting at the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards in a moment that turned into a proposal.
33:11
Voiceover
Tonight we’ve got a record 246 nominations across 30 categories. And we need this representation more than ever. We need more drama, more comedies, and more love stories. So, speaking of love stories, ours began four years ago here in our favourite restaurant, the Beverly Hills Ballroom, . Best roast- chicken spot in Los Angeles. And Nico got me, at the Aftermathafterparty, h. He got me a Kettle Ketel One cocktail. He lured me into his limousine, and then he swept me off my feet. Nico, your love has taught me how to love. You are my other half, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
34:11
Mel Woods
The cheering went on for a whole other minute. A love story. T to love. Ppeople very publicly, living their lives on reality shows, on awards shows, being casually trans, casually queer, merely themselves. That’s pretty big. Pretty real.
34:35
Voiceover
Thanks. M to my guest, Zeke Smith, who is currently writing and living in L.A. and a proud board member of GLAAD. This episode was produced by Daniel MacIvor and edited by Lito Howse. Get Queer was mixed at Sound Park Studios in Nova Scotia and produced by Pink Triangle Press in Toronto. In Vancouver, I’m Mel Woods. Thanks for listening.