In recent years, conversations surrounding the introduction of gender-neutral acting awards have grown increasingly mainstream as trans, nonbinary, and allied performers advocate for a more expansive approach to celebrating achievements in the arts. Now, we have confirmation that even the team behind Hollywood’s biggest night, the Oscars, is paying attention.
In a recent interview with Variety, Bill Kramer, the openly gay CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, confirmed that gender-neutral acting categories are being discussed within the organization, although no concrete details have been worked out yet.
“We are exploring this topic with our awards, membership, equity, and inclusion committees and soon with our Board of Governors,” Kramer said. “It’s in the early exploration stage and one of many conversations about the future of awards and the Oscars. We are still investigating how it could look.”
As Variety notes, there is already a precedent for doing away with gendered acting categories. Several film organizations have made the switch to gender-neutral acting categories, including the Film Independent’s Spirit Awards, the MTV Movie & TV Awards, the Gotham Awards, the Berlin Film Festival, and the Canadian Screen Awards. Outside the film world, the Grammys stopped awarding separate male and female vocal performance categories in 2012.
However, as Josh Welsh, president of the nonprofit Film Independent, told Them last year, awards shows are one element of the industry, and making non-gendered awards can’t be a one-stop solution to systemic issues.
“That has to be addressed in the room where studios and streamers greenlight projects and decide how much money to allocate,” Welsh said. “Awards shows are at the tail end of the process and reflect the films that have come out that year. Holding onto gendered categories is the wrong approach to solving that problem and in and of itself doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
In recent years, some nonbinary actors have opted not to submit their names for award consideration as a form of protest against binary categories. In 2023, nonbinary actor Justin David Sullivan, who appeared in the Broadway musical & Juliet, said that they felt they “had no choice but to abstain” from Tonys consideration because neither male or female categories were the right place for them. That same year, nonbinary Yellowjackets star Liv Hewson decided not to submit their name for Emmys consideration, telling Variety that “there’s no place for me in the acting categories.”
As Orange is the New Black and Billions star Asia Kate Dillon told Them last year, awards show representation is a fraught endeavor to begin with.
“Black, POC, Indigenous, trans, and disabled women are still the most underrepresented groups at any awards show,” Dillon wrote at the time. “If what we’re worried about is gender and ethnic parity, then having a category that historically rewards cis white women is part of a much larger problem.”
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