September 24, 2019
Sam Smith, who came out as nonbinary earlier this year, has received mostly supportive social media feedback on their announcement. One high profile critic, however, was Piers Morgan, who, on "Good Morning Britain," mocked the singer's identification in light of a report suggesting that the Brit Awards may axe gendered award categories.
In a segment riddled with sarcasm, Morgan, who seemed to connect the report to Smith" s="" announcement,="" said:
"I think it's great that such time honored awards should be just wrecked like this because one guy decides he can't decide if he's male of female. They wanna accomodate nonbinary performers like Sam Smith. Which category will he now enter? He won't have to. Now he'll enter the nonbinary categories."
"I'll tell you what will happen," Morgan continued. "This will be like women's sport being decimated. It'll be the women that suffer eventually. I suspect what will happen is male singers and performers will end up winning a few more of the awards than the women. The whole point of having the gender categories is to make it fair; now we're gonna go the other way and not make it fair or equal, and that apparently is progress. I think it's a load of nonsense. The idea that you have to change entire award categories because one guy decides one day to wake up and say I'm nonbinary, it's nonsense."
Morgan repeatedly used the male gender pronouns Smith has requested people not use. The singer announced on social media that they would go by "they/them" pronouns.
"Today is a good day so here goes," the singer wrote. "I've decided I am changing my pronouns to THEY/THEM after a lifetime of being at war with my gender I've decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out," Smith wrote. "I'm so excited and privileged to be surrounded by people that support me in this decision but I've been very nervous about announcing this because I care too much about what people think but fuck it! I understand there will be many mistakes and mis gendering but all I ask is you please please try. I hope you can see me like I see myself now. Thank you."
Two LGBT news sources
Smith's only response to the Morgan segment was to post a photo of them sipping wine shirtless on Instagram with a simple "wave" emoji, possibly a reference to making waves in the media.
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