"There I was, feeling a sting of shame that reminded me of America's earliest affirmations of my inadequacy as a transperson."
After transgender musician ANOHNI was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for collaboration with J. Ralph on "Manta Ray," but was not asked to perform or present at the awards (reportedly due to "time constraints"), she penned a powerful essay on Pitchfork about why she won't be attending the ceremony.
In the emotionally raw essay, ANOHNI says she's grateful to be the firstever transgender person to be nominated for the award and was initially excited that she might be asked to perform there, particularly since everyone was asking her if she was going to be performing. After a while of not hearing from anyone from the awards show asking her to perform, however, she grew anxious and says she started to feel that "the positive implication of this nomination was being retracted," adding, "the producers seemed to have decided to stage performances only by the singers who were deemed commercially viable. Composer David Lang's song 'Simple Song #3' performed by South Korean soprano Sumi Jo was also omitted."
Last night I tried to force myself to get on the plane to fly to L.A. for all the nominee events, but the feelings of embarrassment and anger knocked me back, and I couldn't get on the plane. I imagined how it would feel for me to sit amongst all those Hollywood stars, some of the brave ones approaching me with sad faces and condolences. There I was, feeling a sting of shame that reminded me of America's earliest affirmations of my inadequacy as a transperson. I turned around at the airport and went back home. As if to rub salt into the wound, the next morning the Oscars added that I was transgendered to the trivia page of their website.
ANOHNI says she doesn't feel that her performance was cut because she's transgender and believes it's because she's "relatively unknown in the U.S.," among other reasons, but also feels "if you trace the trail of breadcrumbs, the deeper truth of it is impossible to ignore," and goes on to speak about the years when she was told she'd never have a career in music because of who she was.
Her closing paragraph says she won't be attending, saying she would rather spend her time trying to "maximize my usefulness and advocate for the preservation of biodiversity and the pursuit of human decency within my sphere of influence."