The organisers of Britain’s biggest music awards, the Brit Awards, are said to be considering making the categories gender neutral in a change that could affect next year’s ceremony, reported The Sunday Times.
This comes just a week after singer Sam Smith, 27, nominated in the best male category at this year’s awards ceremony, pleaded “after a lifetime of being at war with my gender” to be referred to as “they” rather than “he”.
While Brit Awards categories such as best newcomer and best single include male and female nominees, those for best solo performers have been split by gender since 1977.
It was reported on Sunday that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade body, which organises the awards, is deciding whether to update categories to accommodate “non-binary” artists such as Smith.
Netizens had something to say about this, as most ridiculed the idea:
Emma Watson's best actor award (for Beauty and the Beast) was a start when MTV featured the first mainstream film and TV awards ceremony to adopt gender-neutral performance categories in 2017.
Announcing the arrival of the gender-neutral categories last month, the head of MTV, Chris McCarthy, said:
“This audience actually doesn’t see male-female dividing lines, so we said, “Let’s take that down.””
Other awards ceremonies have also considered the idea of abolishing gender-separated categories, and the Grammy awards made best pop vocal, country vocal and R&B vocal performances gender-neutral categories in 2012.