At its surface, Pinterest may seem like a simple visual inspiration platform, a place to discover and save aspirational photos of apartment decor, recipes, wedding style, party themes, and seasonal looks. But the site can also be a source of community, representation, and crucial information — all of which are evident in new data from the company that shows a massive increase in search terms related to transgender and nonbinary identity.

Pinterest users have been searching for terms like “transgender quotes inspiration,” “transgender pride,” “transgender facts,” and “transgender art” for years, but such terms saw a significant increase in interest over the last year. Searches for the phrase “transgender transition,” in particular, started to climb in May 2018, and have continued rising since then — overall, a nearly 4,000 percent increase.

According to the company, the past year has ALSO seen millions of searches for specific topics like name and pronoun changes, gender-affirming surgeries, style, and tips for how to support loved ones who are transitioning — including trending searches for “hormone therapy,” “transgender comic,” “LGBTQ coming out ideas,” “nonbinary fashion plus size,” and “genderqueer wallpaper (cell background);” as well as trans and non-binary celebrities like Indya Moore and Andreja Pejić.

“I’ve used Pinterest during my physical transition to explore and visualize my style,” one transgender Pinterest employee said in a statement shared by the company in their release. “How do I see myself and how do I want others to see me? How much do I want to blend in or stand out? Timeless or trendy? Rugged, preppy, minimalistic, edgy or athletic? [...] Pinterest has been a great source of not just inspiration for what I want to wear, but of self-actualization. It's helped me see what's possible for me during a time of immense growth.”

For its part, Pinterest is hoping to be a resource even beyond the pins on its platform. In June, the company made a public-facing version of their internal gender transition guide so that transitioning employees and their employers at other companies can benefit from it as well. The guide, which was developed with the help of Pinterest employees, includes things like a sample communications plan, workplace tips and best practices, a glossary, and more.

“There was no employee transition guide or defined path for transitioning at Pinterest when I told my manager I had started testosterone and would soon start using male pronouns,” the aforementioned Pinterest employee said in the same statement, noting that he encountered logistical issues such as how to stop his old legal name from showing up in his colleagues’ contacts. “These are the kinds of things that, well, happen in the world outside of work too. [...] Now, we have something tangible that can evolve with our needs.”

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