Survivor was always queer cannon, but for many of us true heads, the longrunning game of social betrayal was an IYKYK affair. No more: Survivor’s post-pandemic era has seen a surge in queer enthusiasm and today, a growing, but mighty subset of queer die-hards regard the show as appointment viewing. That uptick has played out online as Survivor’s queer fans have congealed on X, recreating the same kind of deliciously stupid digital fan culture as the ones surrounding The Real Housewives and RuPaul’s Drag Race.
On Survivor’s latest 47th season, it was clear that the queer Survivor-verse had one of its own on the show: Teeny Chirichillo. As far as tribal affinities go, I have many in common with them: they're a freelance writer (check), in their early-to-mid 20s (check), queer (yass, check) and “chronically online” (check, check, check). And I kept my eye trained on them as a low-key avatar for how I may fare on the island myself.
Spoiler alert: Chirichillo had a bumpy road on Survivor, but they did manage to make it to the final four, going out in a fire-making duel with their half-rival, Sam Phalen. It was a fitting end; Chirichillo had a long simmering semi-feud with Phalen, a “handsome jock,” who they at times regarded as a walking symbol of confidence and privilege. Chirichillo’s vocal annoyance was understandable for many queer viewers who could relate to being irked by how our straight or cis counterparts float through life. But Chirichillo’s unfiltered feelings were predictably inciting for certain viewers who may have been puzzled, or downright annoyed, at seeing an outspoken nonbinary contestant on the show.
Indeed, Chirichillo was unsparing in acknowledging how their gender identity complicated their time on the island. After being betrayed by their frenemy, Genevieve Mushaluk — a sharp, fierce, high-femme force in the game — Chirichillo acknowledged that their sense of abandonment was intersecting with their larger sense of personal discovery and social insecurity. “I don’t know how I fit in in a man-woman binary world. I feel like I’m dealing with a lot of very personal inner-world issues and trying to mask them for my game,” Chirichillo admitted on the show.
Refreshing as their honesty was, there was a risk in Chirichillo’s sharing. While Survivor has had a long history of queer contestants dominating (its first winner was a gay man, Richard Hatch), its history with trans contestants is, to put it lightly, shakier. The most famous moment from Survivor that touches on trans identity is when Zeke Smith, a returning player, was outright outed by another contestant, Jeff Varner, who revealed Smith’s identity as an example of Smith’s ability to “deceive.” Varner was promptly removed from the game and rebuked, but any trans contestants would be well within their rights to be wary of discussing their identity given the moment’s impact.
Chirichillo was unfazed by this history, though. “Honestly, as horrible as that moment was, it was also a turning point in that Survivor won't let this happen again,” they tell PAPER. But there were other risks, more connected to everyday life: “I didn’t want to open up, share my story with people, and have them afraid of saying the wrong thing. And then because of that fear, they may want to vote me out to avoid the conversation in general,” Chirichillo shares. “That was more of my fear: not wanting to make people feel uncomfortable because they don't have the language for this stuff.”
Luckily, that didn’t happen. And lucky for us, Chirichillo made some time to chat with me, PAPER’s resident Survivor head, about making their dreams come true, online backlash and their life as a writer.
You haven't been able to reflect on your whole Survivor experience until now. What has this last week been like for you now that you’re finally able to reflect on and talk about the whole season?
There's so much relief and liberation. There's the micro-effect of my friends and family not knowing what happened and not being able to talk about the experience in its entirety with them. But then there’s this macro-level of the fact that the discourse happening around me specifically was really patched up in that final episode. So not being able to explain myself in some ways, or speak to some of the things that happened earlier on, was really difficult and challenging and I feel like I just had to really hold out. This past week, I've been able to make fun of myself online, but also give my two cents on the whole experience and my entire up-and-down journey on the show. And that feels like a new lease on life.
We (sadly) don't have a live reunion on Survivor anymore, but that's usually a time where you would get to address the fan reaction or things that have popped up with fellow cast mates. If there was a live reunion, do you know what you'd want to talk about, or what fellow castmates you'd want to address?
I would want to clear the air up that Sam and I are very good friends in the real world, and he is so gracious and was so kind and understanding about the lash-out that I had on him out there, and this unwarranted, one-sided rivalry that I created for myself with him in the game. I talked about it on the show, but even post-show, I've had a lot more introspection about it. And it truly was from me having this inner jealousy that stemmed from gender insecurities that I've had throughout my life, and I projected those onto him. And I believe it was one day after a reward where I came back to camp and Andy was like, “Why don't you guys just squash this beef right here?” And Sam was like, “I don't have any beef. I love Teeny.” And it was in that moment where it clicked for me, like, Oh yeah, there's no substantial reasoning here why I should have negative feelings about Sam. And so it kind of pushed me into gear to think about why that was, and it all came from inside. So I would just want to clear that up, because I do agree that I overreacted to certain things that Sam did, that didn't deserve those reactions, and now we're all on the same page. And I love him, and I know now that it was my problem to deal with, and I feel like I've done that.
That moment with Sam and other moments in-game contributed to a lot of online hate from a certain part of the fandom. You seem to have really dealt with it with a sense of humor, which I think a lot of people struggle with when they're thrust into the public. What's it been like dealing with this new online attention?
In the darkest hours there were hundreds of people coming to my Instagram page directly and writing on it. People tell you, “Don't look at it,” but it’s impossible when it's coming directly to you and you can't escape it. The biggest help for me was relying on my actual friends in my real life. I was able to call them up on the phone and talk to them about the situation. That was the only time I was able to find humor in it. It was just like, Wow, something I said five months ago that I know I've done the work to deal with is resulting in this character assassination of me online. And in some ways it's kind of funny. Just relying on the actual tangible relationships and support system I have in my real life was huge. And also knowing that Sam and I are good. We don't have these issues.
I can appreciate the value of being this polarizing figure, because a lot of people online have used my lashing out at Sam as an opportunity to bash me for things about my identity that they never would have liked. So in some ways, it served as a filtration system for me, where the people who I see defending me are people who I want to be supporting me; and the people who are giving me hate are people who I wouldn’t click with in real life anyways. So that has been really grounding, and I don't want any of those haters to be able to see me post about being upset and realize they got what they wanted. No, I know that I was silly at that moment too. I'm happy to make fun of myself for it, and I'm happy to just rely on the people who I love to assure me that it's not who I am on a day-to-day basis.
One of the most relatable elements of your story is how you speak about your identity on the show. You don't address it directly until the season’s midway point. Did you know going in that this could come up and that you would talk about it? Or was there a moment that kind of shifted where you're like, “I'm going to speak about this now?”
I was open to the fact that it may come up. I'm fielding questions about my pronouns all the time, so I was expecting fellow castmates to ask me about it. But going into Survivor, I was in a very transitional place. There were some people in my life I had never broached the topic of my gender with, and then there's some who I would get really in the weeds with it about, so I was in this very big in-between stage. I didn't know how that would manifest on the island at all. I didn't know if it would be something I shut out.
But at that point in the episode where I talk about it, it truly was such a low for me in the game that it forced me to come face-to-face with it on the island. And also, two days before I went to go do Survivor, I had a top surgery consultation, so I had that sort of living in my head. A lot of my identity was embroiled in just the way I was thinking about things. And when the game kind of started going messy for me, I had no choice but to let it out. So it wasn't a plan, but I think that's what I like about it: it came out just because it was so authentic to the situation I was living in. I was worried that maybe it wouldn't get featured because I didn't make this bold declaration of “This is my identity. I am non-binary.” But I think that's more representative of how I felt at that moment.
The show has obviously had incredible queer characters since literally day one, but its history with trans contestants is rockier. Zeke was outed as trans in season 34, for example, which is one of the most notable moments related to trans people on the whole show. Was there any sense of danger or fear about how your identity could be construed given that history?
Honestly, I feel like as horrible as that moment was, it was also a turning point in that Survivor won't let this happen again. I also think it's a uniform view across all fans of the show, who are largely the ones who are getting cast, how horrible it was. And I have the privilege of being on the other end of the horrible things that happened in the past that they couldn't have ever expected. So I wasn't too concerned, because I know that with casting, you have to go through so much that I did not think a transphobe would make it through. I didn't think that there would be somebody out there who would be hateful or spiteful against my identity.
I think that it was definitely a danger in the sense that cis people don't get gender. That concerned me a little bit, just because I don't want to open up, share my story with people, and have them afraid of saying the wrong thing. And then because of that fear, they may want to vote me out to avoid the conversation in general. That was more of my fear: not wanting to make people feel uncomfortable because they don't have the language for this stuff. But luckily, everyone, anytime I opened up, was super curious and excited to learn, so I'm lucky for that.
Going back to your online sensibilities, I know you're very deep in the Survivor online subculture, which is a very specific thing. Were you thinking about what social media and the reception would be like while you're watching it?
Absolutely! If you are chronically online, it's kind of impossible not to factor in the fact that everything I'm doing is going to be talked about on the corners of the internet where I reside. The first time that I saw Sue I knew instantly that everybody online was going to be obsessed with her. And then the second after Genevieve pulled off the Keyshawn vote, I was like, Okay, if I were online, I'd be retweeting all the stans calling her “mother.” I was playing the game in part as a Twitter fan, so I knew what they'd be saying, and I tried to explain it to people out there. I knew Sol would be the heartthrob. Our promo came out while we were on the island, so the second I got my phone back, I was able to see all these tweets. I remember being on the plane ride home, and somebody had said about Genevieve, “The cuntress plane has landed at the mother convention.” And on the plane ride home from Fiji, I go, “Genevieve, you're not going to know what any of these words mean, but I told you this would happen, and it's already starting.” So it's been such a joy for me to get to see my good friends be talked about online in a way that I have to decode for them.
That's very relatable. I know if I was playing with Genevieve or a Parvati Shallow, for example, the stan part of me would be in complete conflict with the player. Was that a tension for you?
You put it perfectly. One of the most challenging parts of the experience for me was battling the fact that I was a Genevieve stan, but also Genevieve’s adversary in the game. She could have gone home at the Gabe and the Kyle vote. We had a close relationship, and that was a part of why I wanted to keep her, but also I was like, I would not want this girl to go home if I was watching. I want to see what else she can do. I don't want to rip her away from the queer fans just yet, because I am one of those queer fans. I don't know how you could turn that off. Spending so much time watching the show as part of the Twitter community makes it so hard to turn that off when you go out there.
The new era of Survivor still has a lot of juice, obviously, because we all still watch it and stan, but a lot of us fans really revere OG Survivor. If you had a magic wand and you could play old era Survivor or new era Survivor again: do you know which way you'd go?
I would definitely do the oldest, old school, because I think the game that I played would just excel there: be everybody's friend, be liked by the group, the minutia and the nuance of the strategy was a lot more chill then. So personally, for me, I think I would succeed much more in an old-school game. I think I'm a winner of, like, season four any day. But I also do think, as a player, having it be 26 days is so nice. We would be out there and it'd be day 20, and we'd be like, “Okay, we have less than a week left.” to think that in the old era on day 20, you'd have 19 more days: absolutely not. I think that's a tweak that I am behind as a player.
Season 50 is coming up. It's going to be all returning players. If you were asked back, who would you want to be on your dream cast with you?
I'm gonna draft Courtney Yates because I would never stop laughing, and we would have so much fun. I'm gonna cast Katurah Topps because I absolutely loved her on Survivor 45 and I think that she truly has the potential to be a good, actual strategic yin to my yang. I love the way she thinks. And I want to play with [season 1 winner] Richard Hatch; I just adore him. I think he's so wise. He's actually been a great resource for me throughout this experience, and I would just die to see him play Survivor again, so I want to see him back.
I felt connected to you because you're a freelance writer. We're a small tribe. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about your life as a writer and what that looks like?
A lot of what I have written I’ve posted to my Substack. It's a lot of essays about past experiences, my love life, my social life, my sexuality, my gender. I've sold a few essays to some queer magazines about my queer identity and different ways that it's manifested throughout my life. I'm looking to really hone in on writing more in 2025, and I really hope to come out at some point with a book of essays. That's my ultimate dream. Survivor was my dream for a while and now a book of essays is my new goal.
Photos via Getty Images and CBS Entertainment
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