The Trans Visibility Awards is back for its third year, honouring the incredible contributions of transgender, gender diverse and non-binary people in our communities.
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Leroy is a queer trans masc psychologist based in Geelong and practises in community youth mental health as well as supporting community in Colac. Leroy is a Geelong local who utilises his lived experience through his work and in his personal life to support the LGBTQIA+ community both regionally and online.
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Maddie Sumner is a proud transgender woman, youth group facilitator and cyber security professional. Maddie is a passionate advocate for community as co-chair of Telstra's pride network, Spectrum, and separately as a facilitator of regional youth groups 'House of Awesome' and 'Rainbow Lorikeet Collective' with Omnia Community Health and Hume Youth Services. Every year Maddie supports Omnia's annual Pride Camp for young people and celebrates days of significance with local schools. Maddie is always up for a chat, so come and say hey!
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Honoured posthumously
Angela brought an unwavering passion for people, diversity, and inclusion to everything she did. Quick to learn and driven to make a difference, she dedicated herself to creating spaces where others felt valued, respected, and seen. Whether through her work in human resources, LGBTIQA+ advocacy, community volunteering, or one-on-one support, Angela led with humility, kindness, and reflection. She was authentic and deeply thoughtful, always doing the quiet, unseen acts of care that made a lasting impact on people's lives. Angela always reminded us of our shared accountability to make this world a wiser one. Angela is deeply missed by us all.
The House of DIESEL is Naarm's trailblazing Ballroom house, founded in February 2024. In their debut year, they made an unforgettable impact through their Debut Mini Ball, POC trans and queer nightlife events, vogue nights, and panel discussions with Thorne Harbour Health. They performed at Gaytimes Music Festival and Minus18's NGV Queer Formal, closed Melbourne Fashion Week, and opened for names like Big Freedia and Infinite Coles. The DIESELs walk fearlessly in their truth, uplifting their culture, people, and community.
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Harry Lloyd is a trans-masc, non-binary writer and director whose work explores identity, power and belonging through genre. Named an IF Rising Talent for Directors 2026, they were set-up director of SBS series Homebodies, which received a Special Mention at the prestigious Series Mania, with Claudia Karvan winning a Silver Logie for her performance. Their short film Butch won Best Screenplay at Mardi Gras Film Festival. Harry makes bold, entertaining stories that centre queer and trans lives without reducing them to a single note.
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Noa is a trans-masc, non-binary documentary photographer, artist and curator living on Bunurong Country. Their socially engaged practice explores identity, belonging and human connection through photography, storytelling and participatory public art. Noa's recent work for Out Loud on the Ninch, Victoria's Pride's first regional activation on the Mornington Peninsula, brought queer young people and elders together through portraiture and mentorship. Their current project, With Love, From the Future, is an evolving queer archive of letters and collective memory. At the heart of Noa's work, individual stories become moments of collective recognition.
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Nic is a proud Anaiwan trans leader whose identity guides their commitment to strengthening wellbeing, safety, and inclusion across communities. As Founder and Managing Director of Deadly Sports Plus and through work with RMIT, Nic delivers community-led outcomes that uplift Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mob and LGBTIQA+SB people. Their leadership advances sovereignty-centred education, healing, and stronger pathways that support trans and gender-diverse communities to thrive.
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Budi Sudarto, a non-binary, queer, Muslim person from Indonesia, is a business owner, community advocate, and sexual health researcher based in Naarm/Melbourne. They dedicate their work to exploring intersections of ethnicity, faith, sexuality, and gender, and are known for sharing informed, thoughtful views to inspire systemic change. Budi is a loving guncle to their nieces and a loyal friend to those close to their heart.
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Aria is a Filipina femme queen leader and facilitator within Naarm's ballroom scene. Her work is dedicated to providing access to shared community spaces for trans and queer youth of colour, and nurturing the future generations of young queer people to find their family in ballroom. As an artist within several disciplines, her craft is present in illustration, graphic design, and event curation.
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Johanna Browne is a human rights advocate, secular activist and board member of Recovering from Religion Australia, where she leads work across growth, advocacy and fundraising. Her advocacy focuses on religious harm, freedom of belief, and the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people navigating faith, family and identity. As an intersex transgender woman, Johanna brings lived experience to her work on trans and intersex rights, bodily autonomy and equality, while helping build safer, more visible support pathways for people harmed by religion.
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Ari Heart is a therapist turned educator, improving the wellbeing of trans people by educating parents and professionals. In recent years, Ari has trained over 1000 therapists and supported hundreds of parents to accept, support and advocate for their trans children. In July they launched Return to Self, a University of Melbourne video series that has already reached thousands of viewers. Beyond terminology and statistics, their educational work brings depth and relatability, helping the world connect with the beautiful humanity of trans people.
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Leta Taylor is a nail artist and content creator from Aotearoa, New Zealand, living in Naarm for the past 13 years. In her salon work, she most enjoys connecting with other trans people, sharing the confidence she found when first exploring her own expression through nails. In recent years, Leta has shared her experiences of transition online, not just pointing out difficult realities, but reminding fear-riddled cis people that we live full, exciting, ordinary, busy, complex, fun, quiet, love-filled lives. Her favourite part is connecting with trans people and celebrating that there are as many ways to be trans as there are trans people.
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T is a proud disabled and neurodivergent community advocate, Co-Founder of Euphoria Foundation and 314 Movement. Their work is shaped by lived experience, community care and a deep belief that everyone deserves to feel safe, welcome and valued. T is passionate about creating softer, more accessible spaces for LGBTQIAPN+ people, building connection and belonging, and making sure people can participate in ways that work for them. They believe real change starts with people caring for each other.
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Babi Rani Poudel is a trans woman from western Nepal, now based in Melton, Melbourne. A chef, community support worker, writer and storyteller, she advocates for trans, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ people, people living with HIV, asylum seekers and marginalised communities. Working tirelessly behind the scenes, Babi supports people experiencing mental health challenges, drug addiction and social isolation, especially those whose voices often go unheard. Drawing on her lived experience across Nepal, India and Australia, she champions dignity, inclusion, compassion and hope.
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Honoured posthumously
Shei Udeagu was a Black, transmasculine, non-binary advocate, Specialist Family Violence Practitioner and TGD Health trainer. Across their professional and community work, Shei championed LGBTQIA+ inclusion, intersectional justice and the rights of people experiencing family and domestic violence. They brought compassion, courage and an unwavering commitment to challenging systems that exclude marginalised communities. Shei passed away suddenly in July 2026, aged just 37. Their loss is deeply felt across the communities they served, and their legacy of advocacy, visibility and connection continues to inspire.
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Connor is a postdoctoral researcher at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre investigating lymphatic regeneration and treatment pathways for lymphoedema. As a trans man and scientist, Connor is passionate about making science and healthcare more inclusive for transgender, gender-diverse and non-binary people. His passion for advocacy is shaped by his own experience of navigating science without many visible trans role models. Through research, education, and advocacy, Connor tries to be the role model he once needed and to show young trans scientists that they belong.
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James is a queer trans man. He is the current Vice President and East Gippsland representative for the Gippsland Pride Initiative, living in beautiful Gunai Kurnai Country. Growing up with a farming background, James uses his own lived experience of mental illness, LGBTQIA+ identities, neurodiversity and disability to advocate the importance of intersectionality, health and wellbeing literacy and reaching out for support, especially when living rurally or regionally. He has been part of the community services sector for 9 years (and counting), volunteering since age 16.
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Luka is a queer transmasculine Occupational Therapist. They provide specialist OT support focusing on gender affirmation/euphoria, healthy relationships, sex, and intimacy. A strong advocate for accessible gender-affirming care, Luka champions the essential and often missed role of allied health in multidisciplinary healthcare to improve client outcomes. Their impactful work includes research, community-based peer support workshops, and providing clinical education and supervision to allied health clinicians and students on best practices for supporting trans and gender-diverse clients.
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Ty has been an in-person personal trainer and online coach for the past 12 years, working locally on the Mornington Peninsula, but reaching folks all over the world, with their unique approach to fitness, training and exercise. Ty works primarily with fellow trans and queer folks, striving to make fitness and exercise as accessible for as many folks as they can. Ty believes strongly in creating safe, affirming, client-led training sessions where folks feel safe and heard.
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Kylie is a passionate South Gippsland sportswoman excelling in both golf and cricket. Working in the golf industry, she has represented her region and won her club's singles and Foursomes championship in 2026. Kylie has been Vice Captain for both Blackbridge and Traralgon Centrals Cricket Clubs. Her achievements include selection for Victoria in the 2026 Cricket Australia Masters Women's O40s Championships. Kylie also won the batting and bowling awards along with The John Hammer League B&F in the 2026 Mid Year Cricket Association. A tireless advocate for trans inclusion, Kylie has led Centrals CC in Trans Day of Remembrance celebrations and championed acceptance across all sports.
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Sam is the founder and head coach of T Gen Gyms, a trans-led and operated gym service in Coburg, Naarm. Big cat dad, sci-fi nerd, picks up heavy circles and puts them back down. Sam's mission as a coach has always been to help trans folks get strong. Now his focus is on creating pathways for other gender expansive folks to enter the world of health and fitness both as people and as professionals.
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Andrew Eklund has focused on practical support, education and policy change to improve the lives of Trans and Gender Diverse people. In 2013 he established the FTM Shed, a peer support group still offering support to Transmasculine people today. He has worked with TGV, Monash Health, Victorian Secondary Schools, Universities, Aged Care Providers, Corporate Victoria and the Criminal Justice System to bring inclusive practices for TGD people. Andrew believes trans people are awesome and that they can offer unique insight into the gender assumptions experienced in our society.
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Greer is a Life Member of Seahorse Victoria, which is the longest continuously functioning trans social support group in Victoria since 1975. She joined Seahorse 24 years ago and was president in 2005/2006 and 2009/2025. Seahorse provided a safe, supportive environment to learn to be comfortable with herself and give perspective for the rest of her life. Her involvement in Toastmasters, Apex and Rotary has been a driving force to ensure that social support groups like Seahorse continue.
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Julie Peters became convinced as a child that her parents were dumb for not realising she was a girl. Julie was very stressed at a boys' high school. Even then she sneaked out at night in her mum's clothes. Julie had her first public speaking on trans in 1981 to Monash medical students. In the 1990s, with others, she pushed for law reform to protect trans people and ran five times for the Australian Democrats. She helped set up and was convenor of TGV in 2001. She then started a PhD at Deakin, with the aim of empowering trans and gender diverse people. And then, because not enough people had read it, she reimagined the PhD as a cabaret. She still regularly presents on trans empowerment.
Winners in all eight categories will be revealed at the Gender Revel Gala, the biggest night of Trans Month. Grab your ticket and celebrate this year's finalists with us.
2025 winners
