An emoji of a pregnant man is due to be introduced to keyboards later this year.
The pregnant man emoji is part of a draft list of new emojis released by the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit company that promotes the Unicode standard and provides the code and descriptions behind emojis developed by Apple and Google.
Last year, Unicode added the pink, white, and blue pride flag, after years of campaigning by the LGBTQ+ community.
Over the years, emojis have become more diverse, and this year they are rolling out more gender-inclusive options — like transgender and non-binary pregnancies. We will also see some much-needed skin-tone diversity when it comes to certain emoji gestures, like the handshake.
The additions, which follow a similar update to the “bearded person” emoji that allowed users to choose between a masculine and feminine bearded face, “will mean that nearly all emojis can have default a gender-neutral option, with the choice to use a woman or man where relevant” said Jeremy Burge, the chief emoji officer of the reference site Emojipedia.
A few emojis remain without a gender-neutral option, largely in cases where it is unclear what an appropriate gender-neutral approach entails.
The exact date for when these new emojis will be available has yet to be announced, but we know the draft icons go through a comment process before they are approved for use in September each year. After that, it is up to the device manufacturers to decide when/if they want to make the emojis available to users.
