Technology

Gender Neutral Santa Emoji, Trans Flag Emoji Coming In 2020

No featured image available

The Unicode Consortium announced Wednesday that a variety of transgender inclusive emoji will be added to platforms like Apple and Android in 2020, including an emoji of a gender neutral Santa.

The new emoji come as part of the Unicode Consortium’s addition of 117 new emoji for 2020, including a polar bear, bubble tea, an emoji showing people hugging, a woman or gender inclusive person wearing a tuxedo, and a transgender flag, according to Tech Crunch. Google reportedly sponsored five of the new emoji and co-sponsored the transgender flag emoji with Microsoft.

???? Now approved: 117 new emojis for 2020 #Emoji2020 https://t.co/SojQuXZvv6 pic.twitter.com/sHp7GDsSal

— Emojipedia ???? (@Emojipedia) January 29, 2020

The gender neutral Santa emoji is called “Mx Claus” and is “a sequence of the Adult and Christmas Tree emojis,” according to Emojipedia, both of which are “combined using a zero width joiner between each character and display as a single emoji on supported platforms.”

The Mx Claus emoji will come in light, medium light, medium, medium dark and dark skin tones.

Santa Claus is a magical figure otherwise known as Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle, a “jolly” man who wears a red suit and brings toys to boys and girls on Christmas Eve if they have been good all year long. The concept of Santa Claus originated with legends of St. Nicholas, a man who lived in the 3rd century, was renowned for his kindness and generosity, gave his wealth to the poor, and the Catholic Church declared a saint.

Apple and Google did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.