June 2018 update: Why isn’t there a Transgender Pride Flag Emoji?

who is responsible for creating emoji

im going to yell at them until we get a trans pride flag emoji

— GQ | erin @ korwa metera (@it_is_erin) June 18, 2018

These tweets still cross the wire.

The answer to the question in the post is – “I don’t know”

Not much has changed since I last spoke about this aspect of the unicode standard (My Thoughts on Emoji Recently Added, v11.0, without #Transvisibility, without full #LGBTQ inclusion). The short version of that post is “They were able to add luggage, but not a transgender pride flag.”

Here’s our proposal, still waiting to be acted on, for reference:

https://www.tedeytan.com/2018/03/12/22476/embed/

Well, a few things have changed –

Apple’s own Emoji Proposal – it’s gorgeous

https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18080-accessibility-emoji.pdf

Wow. Really impressive what a company with the resources of Apple can do to follow a process that it is engaged indirectly in creating. The proposal is as beautiful and complete as a new mobile device produced by the company.

Unfortunately, the average citizen probably can’t produce something as gorgeous. We did our best (see: Transgender Pride Flag Emoji Submission for inclusion in the Unicode Standard for 2019 (Update 11: Submitted, March, 2018)).

I think it’s pretty good, and it has global representation of authors. We’ve been reached out to from time to time to see if any assistance can be provided. My response has been “help me understand the process.”

Pride 2018 in the United States – A bigger turnout for transgender pride flags than ever

The proposal for a new emoji character has several requirements, meant to ensure that a new character is distinct, recognized, and non-duplicative.

Here are photos from Washington, DC’s 2018 Capital Pride parade (@CapitalPrideDC). There has never been, in our city’s history, this visibility for this symbol. And note that it’s shown with/next to, not instead of, the rainbow pride flag.