While they said they’d thought deeply about how to represent nonbinary people in award categories, they hadn’t come up with a good solution. One idea they had was to rename the category “best performance in a female character,” but they said that would create a new issue for people playing nonbinary characters on-screen.
While Ramsey was nominated for an Emmy in the Lead Actress In A Drama Series category in 2023 (and has a solid chance of landing a second nod for The Last Of Us’ second season this year), they say being called an “actress” doesn’t feel good. “I have a guttural, ‘That’s not quite right,’ instinct to it,” they explained. “But I just don’t take it too seriously… it doesn’t feel like an attack on my identity.”
Other nonbinary performers have felt differently. Yellowjackets‘ Liv Hewson made headlines for removing themselves from Emmy consideration in 2023, the same year Ramsey was nominated. “There’s not a place for me in the acting categories,” they said at the time. “It would be inaccurate for me to submit myself as an actress. It neither makes sense for me to be lumped in with the boys. It’s quite straightforward and not that loaded. I can’t submit myself for this because there’s no space for me.” Other actors like Billions‘ Asia Kate Dillon, Hacks‘ Carl Clemons-Hopkins (the first non-binary actor to win an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor In A Comedy), House Of The Dragon’s Emma D’Arcy, The Crown’s Emma Corrin, and Broadway actor Justin David Sullivan have also weighed in on the issue.
Various awards shows are starting to respond. The Gotham Awards did away with gender-separated categories in 2021 and the Independent Spirit Awards and Berlin Film Festival both followed suit. Outside of acting, the Grammys have been using gender-neutral categories since 2012. Last summer, the Oscars were also reportedly “in the early exploration stage” of doing away with separate male and female awards, though the Academy is “still investigating how it could look.”
