The United Kingdom's biggest annual music awards ceremony the BRITs handed out gender-neutral prizes for the first time in the show's 45-year history this week, with British singing sensation Adele winning three major honors.

The BRITs used to give awards to the Best British Male and Best British Female artists of the year, and also had categories for best male and female overseas artists.

But organizers announced late last year that gender designations were to be scrapped in favor of a pair of new awards, for Artist of the Year and International Artist of the Year.

Adele said she recognized why the BRITs had taken this step, before adding that she was proud to represent women.

"I understand why they changed the name of this award, but I really love being a woman, I really love being a female artist," she said as she accepted the Artist of the Year award at the ceremony, held at the O2 Arena in London.

Several music industry figures, including three-time BRIT award-winner Sam Smith, had previously criticized the awards for using categories that exclude people who do not identify as male or female.

Smith came out as gender nonbinary in 2019, having been nominated for Best Male Artist that year and also in 2015. In an Instagram post before last year's ceremony, Smith said that the BRITs should consider change.

"Music for me has always been about unification, not division," Smith said. "Let's celebrate everybody, regardless of gender, race, age, ability, sexuality and class".

In response to Smith and others, a review was conducted, and organizers announced the updated categories in November 2021.

In a statement, the BRITs said that the awards had a "commitment to evolving the show to be as inclusive and as relevant as possible" and that artists would now be celebrated "solely for their music and work, rather than how they choose to identify or as others may see them".

Speaking at a Parliamentary committee, UK Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said she disagreed with the new format.

"I think it sounds quite a sad decision. I would like to see how that would work in terms of fair gender representation," Dorries said. "If you wanted to look at who used to win awards for novels and many things in the past, men always dominated… so I would just be concerned on the gender-balance issue."

On Monday, women took home 10 of 15 awards, with Adele claiming a second for Best Song of the Year, and a third for Album of the Year.

United States singer Billie Eilish won International Artist of the Year, while US artist Olivia Rodrigo won International Song of the Year.

UK singer Holly Humberstone won the Rising Star award for best new artist, which was presented to her by last year's winner, British-Chinese singer Griff.