Television Academy to Allow Non-Gendered ‘Performer’ Emmy

The Television Academy will recognize nonbinary performers in the Emmy competition, the organization announced on Monday, as Variety reports. Performer category winners or nominees may now request that their nomination certificate and engraving on an Emmy statue carry the term “performer” in place of “actor” or “actress.”

The Television Academy will still use actor, actress, supporting actor and supporting actress in its categories, but it will now allow each individual to choose how they wish to be identified, including the new non-gendered “performer” label.

The organization’s decision comes after Billions star Asia Kate Dillon publicly questioned the use of gendered acting categories for the Emmy Awards in 2017, which appeared to exclude those who identified as nonbinary like Dillon. In the end, Dillon asked to be entered into the “supporting actor” category that year.

While the Television Academy has not completely eliminated gendered categories like the MTV Movie & TV Awards and the Television Critics Association’s TCA Awards, adding a “performer” distinction is a step towards more inclusion.

On Monday, the Television Academy also said that any documentary film that screens on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website “will be deemed a theatrical motion picture and thus ineligible for the Emmy competition,” which may eliminate the so-called “double dipping” of documentaries for both Oscar and Emmy consideration.