The Trans Pride Flag Emoji Is Finally Here

After years of pressure from community organizers, Apple has finally released a transgender Pride flag in its newest emoji pack. Also unveiled was an emoji depicting the trans symbol, which is typically characterized by a combination of the male, female, and genderqueer symbols around a single circle.

The flag was first teased earlier this year, when the Unicode Consortium, which manages emoji, unveiled it. But the symbol wasn’t available for users until this week with the release of iOS 14.2. Android users have had trans Pride flags via WhatsApp since 2019.

As previously reported by them., the emoji update also tackles gender inequality in other more subtle ways, with more inclusive images than users have seen in the past. That includes a man holding babies, a non-gendered wedding image, a female-presenting person in a tuxedo, and a male-presenting person in a bridal outfit.

Users expressed delight at the new symbol’s availability, flooding Twitter with messages bearing the blue, white, and pink stripes.

Fans of the update also noted that this is a more accurate reflection of the many ways in which people express gender and identity today, with options that are far more diverse than the simple illustrations that Emoji launched with many years ago.

Unicode designer Paul Hunt told Mashable earlier this year that the organization was aware that users are alienated by emoji that don’t allow them to fully express themselves.

"We separate people into different 'kinds' of people, but the kind thing to do is to see everyone as our kin,” he said at the time. “I hope the work I'm doing…is helping us to be able to see that we're all more similar than we are different.”

More inclusive emoji have been slow to appear over the last decade. In 2015, Unicode released new options that included a same-sex couple, while gender-neutral couples first started appearing a year ago.

Some observers had feared the pandemic would slow the release of new images, and the Unicode Consortium said earlier this year that new releases would have to wait until 2022. But in September, the organization appeared to have caught up, announcing the rollout of hundreds of new images.

Of course, Apple users will need to update their phones to the new operating system in order to see the flag, which otherwise will simply appear as a blank white flag next to a separate trans symbol.

That still leaves numerous other LGBTQ+ flags unrepresented, including flags for bisexuality, asexuality, and lesbians.

Also newly added to the iPhone’s emoji lineup are various bugs and bodily organs, a handful of vegetables, an accordion, a tombstone, and roller skates. The iOS update also includes an intercom feature that turns Apple products into in-home walkie-talkies and enhances access to music recognition features. It also patches numerous security bugs.

Despite the advances, critics have noted that there’s still room for improvement when it comes to emoji inclusivity. A paper published in the journal First Monday last year noted that emoji still use white facial features, even when users manually switch the skin tones.

“It's a case where the representation did shift and become broader but, at the center, that base character remains the same,” study author Miriam Sweeney told NPR affiliate WBHM.

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