Emojis 2020 Add ons: Transgender Flag, Gender-neutral Santa Claus and Extinct Dodo

The transgender flag, a gender-neutral alternative to Santa Claus and the famous extinct dodo will all be represented in new emoji to be released in 2020.

In total, 117 new characters and images have been approved for addition to the emoji library, as announced by the Unicode Consortium.

The ‘version 13.0’ list of new emoji also includes a mustachioed person in a veil, as well as a women in a tuxedo and a person bottle-feeding a baby.

Last year, same-sex couple and gender-neutral emoji were added to the library to improve representation, but there was criticism over the lack of the transgender flag.

This has now been added to the library alongside the transgender symbol.

Other additions include the woolly mammoth, people hugging and a pinched-finger gesture, commonly referred to as ‘Italian Hand Gesture’ or ‘Pinecone’, where the tips of the fingers and thumb meet vertically to convey disagreement or confusion.

The full list of new emoji will come to most platforms in the second half of this year.

US non-profit the Unicode Consortium is the central bank of all approved emoji.

Companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft apply stylised versions of the designs to their own operating systems.

No release dates have been confirmed for the emoji on different operating systems, although they are traditionally rolled out later in the year when new versions of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android software are released to the public.

‘Announced today by the Unicode Consortium, the 117 new emojis form part of Emoji 13.0 and will come to most platforms in the second half of 2020,’ said Emojipedia, which is part of the Unicode Consortium and details icons found in updates.

‘Variations of existing emojis now approved for 2020 include a woman or gender-inclusive person in a tuxedo, as well as a gender-neutral person or a man in a veil.’

The inclusion of a gender-inclusive alternative to Santa Claus and Mrs Claus, named Mx Claus, will is part of an ‘ongoing effort to make more consistent set of gender options across the board,’ Emojipedia said.

‘Mx’ is an alternative to Mr and Mrs titles for people who do not wish to be referred to by their gender.

This addition also expands upon the 138 new gender-neutral emojis added in late 2019 as part of Emoji 12.1, Emojipedia said, which included a judge and a red-haired person with no identifiable gender.

Emojipedia noted that some versions of the new emoji, including the transgender flag and the woman in a tuxedo, are already available on Twitter.

Jeff Ingold, head of media engagement at LGBT campaigns group Stonewall, said: ‘Taking action to make tools of communication, like emojis, more inclusive and diverse is always a welcome step.

‘So we’re glad to see the inclusion of more gender-neutral emojis and a trans flag emoji.

‘Visibility is really important and companies can always be thinking of more ways to promote trans equality.’

The transgender flag consists of two horizontal lines, representing those born as a boy, two pink lines for those born as girls and a white line for those transitioning or without a gender, according to its designer, trans activist Monica Helms.

Also among the list of approved emoji is a ninja, a pinched finger gesture, lungs, heart, seal, bison, dodo, fondue set, olive, blueberries, piñata, boomerang, bathroom plunger, toothbrush, magic wand and military helmet.