In Conversation with Clue Coman

Published on the 26 March 2026

For Clue Coman, visibility didn’t arrive all at once. It came slowly, through moments of recognition, community and the realisation that there were words for things they had felt for years.

That experience now shapes how they think about care, community and the work they do.

“I love diving into the rich and messy details of people’s lived experience,” they say. “That’s where you begin to understand what people actually need.”

Ahead of International Transgender Day of Visibility, we spoke with Clue about what visibility has meant in their own life.

Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your role at ADA?

I’m Clue Coman, I use they/them pronouns, and I am a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Centre for Social Research in Health (CSRH) within ADA. My roles as a student and a staff member are rather messily entangled.

My PhD research looks at how justice is imagined and enacted by queer communities, and my research roles within ADA are for projects that tackle healthcare access and data justice for LGBTQIA+ communities. I’m a qualitative researcher, and I love diving into the rich and messy details of people’s lived experience and translating that into research that communicates the unique needs of queer and trans people.

What does visibility mean to you as a non-binary person?

For a lot of trans people, visibility is a turning point in our lives. After spending years or even decades feeling like you are totally lost within yourself, alone in your experience and unable to describe how you feel, seeing a trans person living and thriving is like the sunrise. Suddenly, the whole world is at your feet.

It’s really important that the true diversity of trans lives and stories are visible for many reasons. We know that most cis people are far more likely to respect and support trans rights if they personally know a trans person. But being such a small minority, we can’t be everywhere at once. 

We need our allies to lift our stories and our voices up, so that people who don’t understand us get a chance to connect with our humanity. We also need this visibility so that our trans siblings who haven’t found themselves yet don’t have to waste time stumbling around in the dark, and can instead discover themselves and come enjoy the sunshine with us. 

Would you be comfortable sharing a little about your lived experience and what your journey has been like?

I was a really well-read kid, but I never had the words to describe gender dysphoria when I needed them. I properly came to terms with my queerness through student theatre. It was so easy to be myself when I was surrounded by others like me, but something was still wrong that I hadn’t yet put my finger on.

COVID19 was a significant turning point. Like a lot of people, lockdown presented an opportunity to confront my deeply felt discomfort with the expectations of gender performance that had gone unexamined while they were just a part of normal life.

Since coming to terms with my identity, I’ve had five years to get comfy in it. Gender affirming care is lifesaving care, and it’s been such an honour to spend these years of self-discovery engaging with my community and doing research to better understand trans life and gender affirming healthcare for our benefit. 

What does an inclusive and supportive workplace look like for trans, gender diverse and non-binary people?

I think my fears about being accepted in my workplace actually held me back from transitioning for some time. I had a friend transition while working at the ABC, and they told me about their experience of using the right pronouns at work. Seeing them not just surviving but thriving was really eye opening. It made me realise what I actually wanted from my life and gave me the courage to go out and do work that matters to me in a place where I can authentically be myself.

A supportive workplace is one that goes beyond a poster or two and occasional emails about days like TDOV. If you want to be truly inclusive of your trans coworkers, you need to put in the work to understand the struggles we are facing, but also to really deconstruct the ways that you let assumptions about gender shape how you behave and how you treat others in your life. 

Why do days like International Transgender Day of Visibility matter?

The trans and gender diverse community is made up of people from every nationality, culture, religion and walk of life. Trans people are disabled, they are indigenous, they are queer and they are existing at intersections of violence and oppression in ways that most people never see or acknowledge.

TDOV is a great chance to take stock, to look at how far we’ve come, acknowledge how far we need to go, and really shine a light on what trans liberation is doing for all of our benefit. Trans justice goes hand in hand with disability justice, with first nations justice, with environmental and social justice.

Trans rights are human rights, and the fundamental issues at the heart of trans liberation; bodily autonomy, self-determination, and freedom to live your most authentic life, are so worth fighting for. The better protected these rights are, the better off everyone is as a result. 

In recent years, trans and gender diverse people have frequently been the subject of public debate and commentary in the media and political sphere. 

How do you think those narratives affect the wider community?

Trans joy represents a freedom from the demands of the status quo that is actually very threatening to entrenched power. The last few years have seen increasingly bold and rapid attacks on trans healthcare and access to public life through measures like sports and bathroom bans that often only impact a miniscule proportion of the population.

It’s fair to say that this is scapegoating, using trans people as a political football or distraction. It’s also fair to say that controlling what trans people can do with their bodies is about controlling what everyone can do with their bodies.

Every attack on trans people is always just the first domino, a foot in the door that opens the way for attacks on every other hard-won right to privacy, safety and self-determination.You should care about what’s happening to trans people right now because they are human and deserving of your compassion, but also because of what these attacks represent about the political moment that we are in. 

Is there something you wish more people understood about trans, gender diverse and non-binary experiences?

I think cis people sometimes get stuck trying to relate to trans people by wondering what it would feel like to be a different gender. A more helpful starting point to think, “What if I knew to my very core that I am the gender I am now, but the whole world was devoted to forcing me to feel, look, or act like I wasn’t?”.  

Trans people also have a lot of wisdom and expertise to share on thinking critically about gender as a complex set of social norms that dictate all of our lives, and that deserve to be interrogated, deconstructed and rebuilt according to our actual needs.

There's also a lot to learn from trans experiences about how to pursue joy and truth in your own personal gender expression, which everyone can benefit from embracing.

For colleagues who want to be supportive allies, what are some things they can do that make a real difference?

1. Pay attention: It’s a dangerous moment in history for trans people. Transphobic lawmakers are getting more emboldened by the hour. Don’t assume that the danger to trans people is overseas or in the past. Threats to our safety and wellbeing are here and now. Your trans friends, colleagues and family members are dealing with the incredible weight of widespread and vitriolic hatred. It's taxing and they are tired. You can do the work of following the news rather than relying on them to tell you which state or politician or sports organisation has turned on them this week.
2. Call out the hatred: If you have the privilege of safety, use it to challenge transphobia when you see it. Question why a policy has binary language, write to your MP if they support a transphobic bill, call out the gross jokes your facebook friends make, and don’t assume that trans people have the numbers or energy to fight alone.
3. Be radically caring and kind: Donate to trans healthcare GoFundMes and community organisations. Tell the trans people in your life that you see them, that you love them, that they deserve to be here and they are allowed to take up space in this world.