Anohni (Anohni Hegarty, born 24 October 1971) is a singer, composer, and visual artist of English origin. She was previously the lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons.
Anohni was born in the English town of Chichester. In 1981, her family relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. She went to Manhattan in 1990 to study at New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing, and in 1992 she co-founded the performance art collective Blacklips with Johanna Constantine.
She began her musical career as Antony and the Johnsons, a group of New York City musicians. Antony and the Johnsons, their debut album, was released in 2000 on David Tibet’s label Durtro. I Am a Bird Now (2005), their second album, was a commercial and critical triumph, garnering her the Mercury Music Prize.
She worked with Hercules and Love Affair in 2022, singing on half of the album In Amber, which was published in June. Anohni was ranked 192 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2023.
Anohni is transgender and uses she/her pronouns. In a November 2014 interview with Flavorwire, she claimed, “My closest friends and relatives refer to me using feminine pronouns.
I have not instructed the press to do anything… I prefer her in my personal life. I believe that words are vital. Calling someone by their preferred gender honors their soul, life, and contribution. For me, ‘He’ is an invisible pronoun that negates me.”
What is Anohni gender?
Anohni became the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for an Academy Award in 2016 when she and J. Ralph were nominated for Best Original Song for the song “Manta Ray” from the film Racing Extinction. Hopelessness, her debut solo album, was released in May 2016 to widespread critical acclaim, including another nomination for the Mercury Music Prize and a Brit Award.
