Brit Awards considering gender neutral categories

The Brit Awards for “best male” and “best female” might be merged into one category– according to The Sunday Times. The organisation is considering to make the awards gender neutral. The news follows Sam Smith’s coming out as non-binary.
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The categories for the 2020 ceremony will remain the same. A spokesperson of the Brit Awards calls the report by The Sunday Times based on “rumours and speculation”. According to the paper, the idea for the gender neutral awards was to accommodate non-binary artists, who identify themselves as neither male nor female. According to a source, the organisation wants to listen to the shifts in the current music industry. Sam Smith is a recent example of an artist coming out as non-binary, asking fans and others to use only the gender neutral pronouns “they” and “them”.

The Brits wouldn’t be the first prominent award show to axe the division between male and female artists. The Grammys implemented gender neutral categories in 2012, the MTV Movie Awards and the VMA’s applied the same in 2017.

Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan criticized the idea in his show, commenting: “I want to identify as a dinosaur. Let's have a category at every TV awards that is for Best Dinosaur. Once you get into self-identification that is the way it goes.” He also feared it will be more difficult for women to get an award, once the categories change. The gender neutral categories are expected to be implemented in the upcoming years.

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