Two emojis ‘pregnant man’ and a gender-neutral ‘pregnant person’ are set to come to smartphones later this year, the Unicode Consortium confirmed as part of the Emoji 14.0 upgrade.
The new emojis will start to appear on smartphones in a bid to make emojis “more gender-inclusive” and may be used for representation by trans men, non-binary people, or women with short hair and for more groups.
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OUT SEPTEMBER 17, 2021 pic.twitter.com/M7qVwV1uOu— MONTERO ? (@LilNasX) August 30, 2021
“If the existing ‘pregnant woman’ had been named ‘woman with a swollen belly’ these new emoji would’ve followed suit,” Unicode Emoji Subcommittee Jennifer Daniel explained.
Aside from the potential uses of these emojis, they can also be used to display a “food baby” or known as a full stomach brought by eating a large meal.
According to Emojipedia, an emoji reference site explained that “the meaning of an emoji lies in the context in which it is used, these are no different.”
In some cases, this isn’t the first time that Unicode has released gender-variant emojis. In fact, in 2016 the emoji originals added Mrs. Claus and Mx Claus.
Also, in the same year, the dancer emoji was renamed ‘woman dancing’ and ‘man dancing’.
Though emojis are not the perfect tool for representing all genders, having Unicode emojis upgraded is another way to help more people feel represented via emojis.
These new pregnant emoji options will arrive in late 2021 or early 2022.
Source: https://blog.emojipedia.org/why-is-there-a-pregnant-man-emoji/, https://jenniferdaniel.substack.com/p/did-someone-say-new-emoji
