Liv Hewson Attends the 2024 Emmys

Yellowjackets star Liv Hewson attended the 2024 Emmys on Monday, January 15 after previously withdrawing from Emmy nominations over their use of gendered categories.

The former Santa Clarita Diet star, who is nonbinary, announced in April 2023 they would not be participating in the 2024 Emmy nominations for Yellowjackets due to their gendered awards categories that distinguish between “Actor” and “Actress.”

Other nonbinary actors including Justin David Sullivan and Emma Corrin have similarly spoken out against gendered categories at award shows and the boxes they force nonbinary actors to place themselves in.

One of the few award shows to change a gendered category was the BET Awards in 2023, when they presented nonbinary musician Janelle Monáe with a Spirit of Soul award, renamed from Lady of Soul.

“…Even if I were able to be on a stage like that and talk about being nonbinary with the trophy in my hand, hypothetically, the dynamic at play is still that there’s a category for men and a category for women. You’re putting me in the woman one, giving me the best woman award, then I get onstage and thank you. I’m not going to do that,” Hewson told Teen Vogue during a June 2023 interview. Hewson attended the Emmys wearing an open-chested suit that their top surgery scars poked out of, topped off with a label reading “They/Them” sewn onto their jacket sleeve.

Hewson is arguably one of the most prominent nonbinary stars to have openly gotten top surgery and speak about TERF and conservative accusations that top surgery is a “mutilation.” 

“When people talk about gender-affirming surgery using words like “mutilation,” that’s not very nice. […] It’s a disgust reaction, and I do not take disgust into account as a legitimate point of discourse. I don’t have to entertain it and I’m not going to. It’s a waste of everybody’s time; it’s knee-jerk; it’s not grounded in reality, and it’s not useful,” Hewson says.

In a time when transgender bodies are constantly policed and queer identity is commodified, showing up to one of the biggest award shows in the country wearing an outfit that celebrates one’s transness is a purposeful act of self-love.

Photos courtesy of social media