At Sunday’s Grammys, a man and a transgender woman will join the so-called trophy girls who bring music’s top honors onstage.
It’s a change that puts the Grammys in the front ranks of awards diversity.
“To be honest, the idea of a ‘trophy girl’ has felt antiquated for some time now,” Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy, said in a statement Friday. “Who wrote that rule anyway? The ability to present a trophy has nothing to do with one’s gender.”
The change wasn’t made to be provocative or buck convention, he added, but to acknowledge that “music’s universal power lies in its spirit of inclusion” for all people and their voices.