iOS 10 Gendered Emoji List

Jeremy Burge

• 3 min read
iOS 10 Gendered Emoji List

iOS 10 brings with it a number of new "gendered" emojis, which are in fact Emoji ZWJ Sequences.

What is a little confusing is that Apple only creates the sequence from the keyboard, if the gender is the opposite of the existing character display.

For instance, tapping 💁 on the emoji keyboard will send a single codepoint for 💁 Information Desk Person, as she has always been female on iOS.

Tapping the male equivalent of this emoji will send a new sequence called 💁‍♂️ Man Tipping Hand which is actually a combination of 💁 Information Desk Person + ♂ Male Sign.

An equivalent sequence containing the female 💁‍♀️ Woman Tipping Hand equivalent is supported, but not accessible via the keyboard[1].

All gendered emojis in iOS 10:

What is a ZWJ

If you've not come across the term Emoji ZWJ Sequence, this might clear things up:

Notes

  • The name in the list above are those assigned by Unicode. Apple has created its own names for some emojis in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, but these are not shown here
  • Unicode names are subject to change. Gendered roles are part of Emoji 4.0 which is still a draft
  • If you don't want to accidentally send a gendered emoji to other platforms, use our neutral emoji list which (despite appearances of male or female) includes only the base characters, avoiding any gender sequences.

Release

iOS 10 is scheduled for release on September 13, 2016. We'll have more details and a full iOS 10 Emoji Changelog available closer to the time.

  1. This isn't of much consequence today as iOS uses the same image for both, and no other vendors support these sequences yet. ↩︎