Jamila Jamil has taken to social media to call for non-binary people to have their own category at awards shows.
The actress and body positivity activist took to Instagram to write a message about how the new category would help to not "completely shut out women". Jamil, 37, wrote: "Would it not be better to give non-binary people their own category rather than open the door for Hollywood to completely shut out women given the known disproportionate amount of men vs women winning at award shows?"
She continued: "If we now have enough non-binary talent to restructure entire award shows, which is GREAT, then we should add rather than run the accidental risk of erasing, no? I say this as an audience member because I am not going to be nominated for an Oscar anyway. I have no horse in this race."
The She-Hulk: Attorney at Law actress clarified in the caption that her thoughts come as "the Oscars looking to get rid of gendered acting awards. As we see with the director award which is genderless, it's rare to even see a woman nominated never mind win…" She also added: "I want to open more doors and create more tables, not narrow the opportunities for everyone, including GNC [gender non-conforming] people."
The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey, who identifies as non-binary, hopped in on the conversation, responding to Jamil's proposal. "I feel weird about there being a whole new category. I think it's more about language," they said. "I would love the categories to be 'Actress/Non-Binary Performer' and 'Actor/Non-Binary Performer' then the performer can be submitted into their preferred category."
They continued: "It's not a perfect solution, but that's my take on it. I think it's more about making us feel seen and included rather than categorised."
Jamil later took to her own story to revealed that she had been in conversation with Ramsey over direct message, after people began speculating that the pair were now beefing. "We are DMing really lovely messages and just discussing it together as everyone should because we are all in this together," the British actress wrote.
The Brit Awards removed gendered categories in 2021 and replaced the two awards with 'Artist of the Year', which caused intense scrutiny earlier this year, after not including a single woman or non-binary person on their list of five nominees. So much for diversity...
