Gotham Awards Removing Gendered Acting Categories

The Gotham Awards is removing gendered categories for its acting awards. The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced earlier this week that going forward, instead of best actor and best actress categories, the trophy awards for acting will instead be given out for outstanding lead performance and outstanding supporting performance with the gender of the performer no longer a consideration (via Deadline).

"The move to introduce gender neutral lead and supporting acting awards builds on the legacy of the now 24-year-old Gotham Breakthrough Actor Award (to be renamed 'Gotham Breakthrough Performer Award' as of this year), which has been gender neutral since its inception, and has previously been awarded to performers including Amy Adams, Elliot Page, Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, and Anya Taylor-Joy," the Institute said in a statement.

"The Gotham Awards have a 30-year history of celebrating diverse voices in independent storytelling," Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham Film & Media Institute, said. "We are proud to recognize outstanding acting achievements each year, and look forward to a new model of honoring performances without binary divisions of gender. We are grateful to those who helped to start this conversation in recent years and we are thrilled that the Gotham Awards will continue to support artistic excellence in a more inclusive and equitable way."

Previously, the two acting categories had five nominees each. With the categories now being without gender, the lead and supporting categories will allow up to 10 nominees each. Nominees will be chosen by film critics, film curators, and festival programmers while separate juries of writers, directors, producers, actors, and other film professionals decide the winners. Nominations for this year's Gotham Awards will be announced on October 21. The 30th annual Gotham Awards will take place on November 29.

The Gotham Awards moving away from gendered acting categories is a significant step forward and comes in the wake of calls for other major awards to also remove gender from their acting categories as well. Last year, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum actor Asia Kate Dillon wrote an open letter asking the Screen Actors Guild to remove gender-specific categories from their awards. Dillon is non-binary and uses they/them/their pronouns and earned was nominated for the Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series twice for their role of Taylor Mason on Billions, the first non-binary main character played by a non-binary actor in a major series.

"Separating people based on their assigned sex, and/or their gender identity, is not only irrelevant when it comes to how an acting performance should be judged, it is also a form of discrimination. Not only do your current categories erase non-binary identities by limiting performers to identifying as male or female/man or womxn (which not all SAG members, like myself, do), they also serve as an endorsement of the gender binary at large, which actively upholds other forms of discrimination, including racism, the patriarchy, and gender violence," they wrote at the time.

The 30th annual Gotham Awards will take place on November 29.

Photo: Jemal Countess/Getty Images for IFP