“Survivor” alum Teeny Chirichillo got here out as transgender in a candid new essay.
The 24-year-old acknowledged he struggled together with his id all through his time on Season 47, which aired final 12 months, and continues to be figuring it out at present.
“The state of my life since ‘Survivor’ has been stuffed with uncertainty,” he wrote for Cosmopolitan on Wednesday.
“I didn’t come again to a partner or a full-time profession, like lots of my castmates did. I didn’t have a ardour to switch the 15-year quest that was getting solid. After I take into consideration my future, there’s lots of blurriness. However there’s a lifelong accumulation of artifacts that has pulled my id into focus, contained in the museum of my very own transness.”
Chirichillo, who recognized as non-binary whereas competing on the CBS present, recalled studying “invasive” feedback about himself on-line instantly after his season’s trailer debuted earlier in 2024.
“I waded by debates over my pronouns, whether or not I might ‘rely’ as a lady 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 wrote.
The author admitted he “wasn’t prepared” to label himself on nationwide tv on the time, notably throughout a “recreation of social politics.”
He additionally apprehensive his co-stars would “panic about messing up” his pronouns, which had been she/her on the time, although he later glided by they/them.
“It’s an error virtually unavoidable for these nonetheless studying,” he famous.
Nevertheless, Chirichillo shortly opened as much as his tribe about having gone for a prime surgical procedure session simply days earlier than flying to Fiji to movie the hit collection.
“I joked with my solid that I used to be giving my boobs one final deal with earlier than I put them down by sporting a sports activities bra as a substitute of a binder for the primary time in practically two years. Chest binding on a abandoned island for 25 days is a no-go,” he wrote.
After returning residence, the New Jersey native started to query his non-binary label and realized he “had been a closeted trans man.”
“Even in understanding this, in scripting this, there is part of my mind that may’t shut off,” he wrote.
Chirichillo shared that he typically wonders whether or not his mother and father, grandmother and girlfriend really feel about his transgenderism along with stressing about the price of testosterone injections.
“I don’t anticipate everybody to succeed in the identical degree of ease with my gender that I’ve arrived at after a lifetime of suppressing after which exploring the boyhood in my soul,” he concluded. “However I do know who I’m.”
