We’ve been coming together this Trans Awareness Week to celebrate trans and gender-diverse Canvanauts. This year, we curated a lineup of events designed to empower, create opportunities for learning directly from those with lived experience, and foster a sense of community.
Transcending boundaries
For the second year in a row, our Transcending Boundaries panel explored the diverse perspectives and experiences of trans Canvanauts. It allowed us all to expand our understanding of the critical importance of allies and celebrated the journey of the community to date. We had a blast with Drag Bingo, led by the fabulous Kitty Obsidian, and gained valuable insights from author, Jasper Peach, on supporting and affirming gender-diverse children and teens.
Jasper Peach, they/them, trans, non-binary and disabled writer, speaker and parent.
Photo by Mark Lobo Photography
But while we acknowledge the importance of recognised days of significance, we believe true inclusion means making every day count. And we aim to bring our whole team along on the journey.
Small acts with big impact
Canvanauts tell us that small acts of kindness and inclusion from other Canvanauts can have big impacts. When Tamm from our Performance Platform team added their pronouns and a non-binary flag to their profile, it wasn’t just an update—it was a beacon of identity. Tamm shares that the responses they had from their team led to a greater sense of inclusion.
“When I added my pronouns and a non-binary flag to my profile, it became so much more than just visibility. Someone noticed and invited me to our gender diverse social community, and I had allies reach out just to ask, is that the non-binary flag in your picture? Those simple moments of recognition created such unexpected connections – it's made Canva feel like home.”
Triss Healy, she/her, FrontEnd Engineer and Transcending Boundaries Panelist
Being there for our team when it counts
At Canva, we’re on a life-long journey of learning. So we spend time listening to our community, to understand how we can evolve our policies and processes to better meet the needs of all Canvanauts. It’s why we developed our gender affirmation leave policy, which provides access to up to 8 weeks of paid Gender Affirmation leave to support social, medical and legal affirmation. It’s also why we created Canva’s Guide for Supporting Trans and Gender Diverse Canvanauts. Emmanuel, from our People Experience team, shares what contributing to the guide meant to him.
“When Canva’s Guide for Supporting Trans and Gender Diverse Canvanauts was being developed two years ago and the team creating this reached out to myself and other trans Canvanauts to provide our feedback during the development stage, I felt that our feedback and perspective were really valued. That was quite different from my experience in previous workplaces, where policy that effects trans employees might have been created with the best intentions, but without any trans employees having a seat at the table so to speak, so it did mean a lot and still does.”
Hugo Welke, he/him/his, People Experience Design Lead and Pride Collective Lead, and Manon Pietra, she/her, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lead
Rae, a member of our Marketing Technology team, shares the profound impact of not only our policies, but the thoughtful support of their team.
“When I went on gender affirmation leave in 2022, my team was incredibly supportive, checking in on me and even sending meal vouchers during my recovery. Recently, I had another surgery, and Canva’s Gender Affirming Care policy made it possible for me to take time off. My partner and I were stretched financially, and having paid time off meant I didn’t need to ask for help covering finances during my recovery time.”
Empowering the community
Beyond empowering our team, we’re always looking for opportunities to be a force for good in the world, too. If you’re familiar with our Two-Step Plan, you’ll know that this has been part of our DNA from day one.
Our Two-Step Plan: Step 1: Build one of the world’s most valuable companies. Step 2: Do the most good we can.
For our 2025 and 2026 partnership with Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, we’ve provided grants worth $5,000 for NFPs, charities, community groups, and individuals, to take part in the parade. We’re proud to have awarded two of these to Trans organisations, to empower them to shine their light in the festivities. We’re also sponsoring Transgender Victoria’s Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil, to honour the lives of those we have lost to anti-trans violence and discrimination.
When it comes to our product too, we’re committed to curating the world’s most inclusive and representative content for Canva’s users. Our content library is home to over 147,000 Pride-focused templates and 3.4 million elements which have supercharged creativity for our community. These are just some of the ways we want to show up for the trans and non-binary community.
As we love to say at Canva, we’re only 1% of the way towards achieving our goals. We know there’s so much more opportunity to have a positive impact and we're committed to continuing to support and amplify the voices of the trans community.
