In what's an emerging trend, the Independent Spirit Awards have announced that its acting categories will no longer be defined by gender. Rather than "best actor" or "best supporting actress," for example, awards will be given to "best lead performance" and "best supporting performance."
The 38-year-old Spirit awards honor filmmakers working outside the studio system. It's not the first to make this move; the Grammy awards went gender-neutral in 2012, the MTV awards dispensed with gender distinctions in acting in 2017 and the Gotham Awards made a similar announcement last year.
