FINALLY, emojis are becoming inclusive of queer people of colour and people living with disabilities

© 2019 Emojipedia Sample Image Collection

Yesterday, the Unicode Consortium approved a major 230 brand new emojis that are to be announced officially next month. The move comes in an attempt to make emojis more inclusive to people of colour, inter-racial relationships and people living with disabilities. The emojis will possibly reach most major platform as soon as September, making it the sixth major update to emojis since 2014. 

Here are some of the emojis you can expect to see on your smartphone soon:

(All images by Emojipedia sample image collection)

Men Holding Hands: Various skin tones

The two men holding hands will no longer be the default yellow colour but will offer up the option to chose from various combinations of skin tones for the same-sex male couples. The gay community has a real issue with racism, so it’s nice to see emojis that will now represent not caucasian gay couples holding hands.

 

Women Holding Hands: Various skin tones

Lesbian couples will also be given the same update to be able to vary the skin colour of the couple holding hands. 

 

 

People Holding Hands: Various skin tones

In a bid to become more gender-inclusive as well as embracing racial diversity, there will also be a gender-neutral couple holding hands who can also have various combinations of skin tones. 

 

Manual and Motorized Wheelchairs

Despite there being various forms of transport given as emojis, it isn’t until now that people will be given a wheelchair emoji to use, both motorized and manual.

 

Deaf Man/Woman/Person

People who have varying levels of hearing will be able to convey themselves with a single emoji. How wonderful that a non-binary deaf person of colour now has an emoji! We love 2019 already.

 

Man/Woman with Probing Cane

In conveying people who are visually impaired, they have opted with a figure walking with a probing cane. Unfortunately, this is only available in Man and Woman versions. 

 

Man/Woman in Manual and Motorised Wheelchair

People of colour living with disabilities are criminally underrepresented, but at least they will soon be able to find themselves on the emoji keyboard.

 

All emojis will be added to Emoji 12.0 due to be released in 2019.

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