Charlize Theron has said she’s in favour of scrapping gendered categories at awards shows.
The Hollywood star – who received the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2004 and a second nomination two years later – has suggested she supports calls for categories separating male and female nominees to be scrapped, to allow those who are non-binary or gender non-conforming to be recognised.
When asked when she expected these changes would begin to take effect, Charlize told PA news agency: “Let’s hope soon.”
Earlier this year, Charlize made headlines when she revealed that her seven-year-old, Jackson, is a girl, having initially introduced her to the world as a boy.
“I thought she was a boy, too. Until she looked at me when she was three years old and said, ‘I am not a boy!’,” Charlize explained.
“So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive.”
The debate around gendered categories at awards shows has been going on for some time now, with the MTV Movie & TV Awards the first major ceremony to do away with them in 2017.
Since then, Emma Watson, Chadwick Boseman and Lady Gaga have all been the recipient of the Best Performance In A Movie category.
More recently, it was suggested that the Brit Awards would be axing its gendered categories from 2020 onwards, in what some reports linked to former winner Sam Smith coming out as non-binary.
Following her Best Original Song win at the Oscars this year, Lady Gaga called for the Film Academy to follow the MTV Awards’ lead ditch its Actor and Actress categories to allow more inclusivity.
