Anohni, the first-ever transgender singer nominated for Best Original Song Oscar for her performance of "Manta Ray" in the documentary Racing Extinction, is, like many others, not attending Sunday's Academy Awards.

Her reason is pretty straightforward: "I will not be lulled into submission with a few more well manufactured, feel-good ballads and a bit of good old fashioned T. and A."

After being announced as a nominee, the English singer (formerly known as Antony) anxiously awaited her invitation to perform at the ceremony, she wrote in a lengthy blog post on her website. Fellow nominees Sam Smith, Lady Gaga, and the Weeknd were announced, and she kept waiting. Then she realized she probably wasn't getting an invite to the stage because, as she put it, "the producers seemed to have decided to stage performances only by the singers who were deemed commercially viable."

South Korean singer Sumi Jo, who sang David Lang's "Simple Song #3" for YOUTH, also never got an invite. And yet Dave Grohl, who isn't nominated for anything, joined the lineup. While everyone told her she should go for the sake of her career, she changed her mind last minute on her way to the airport, turned around and went home.

She said she doesn't think her exclusion was because of her transgender status, but rather because she "might not sell advertising space."

"But if you trace the trail of breadcrumbs, the deeper truth of it is impossible to ignore. Like global warming, it is not one isolated event, but a series of events that occur over years to create a system that has sought to undermine me, at first as a feminine child, and later as an androgynous transwoman," she wrote. "It is a system of social oppression and diminished opportunities for transpeople that has been employed by capitalism in the U.S. to crush our dreams and our collective spirit."

Anohni ended the letter addressing America's all-consuming obsession with money: