Google introduces gender-neutral emojis to curb discrimination in Android P Beta 2

Google has recently started rolling out Android P Beta 2 update for its devices. The new update brings features like an Adaptive battery, App Actions along with the support of 157 new emojis for its platform. The emojis list gets a number of new additions including hot/cold face, lama, superhero etc. along with some changes in the aesthetics to a few old emojis. However, the highlight feature that comes along with the Android P beta 2 update is the newly introduced gender-neutral emojis.

The 'family' emoji now has a gender-ambiguous pair of parents along with a 'couple with heart' emoji which shows a pair of gender-neutral individuals. Users will also get an option to select a specific combination of genders for any of the two emojis. For instance, a user can select an emoji of heterosexual or gay or lesbian couples simply by specifying the gender.

Considering the fact that these emojis are already present in the Unicode Standard the emojis are not new. The major noticeable change is in how Google is considering a different approach with the help of which a gender-neutral emojis will be presented as an outcome if in case the gender of the members in a family or couple is not specified.

Upon searching for a family emojis in the previous builds of Android would present the users an emoji consisting of a man and a woman, which was a bit outdated for the modern times. The same goes with the 'couple with heart' emoji which presents a heterosexual couple by default. While the 'family' and 'couple with heart' are the only emojis that have adopted the non-binary approach of presenting a gender-neutral emoji.

According to an official Emojipedia blog post, 'While this update is not a return to gender-neutral blobs, it does recognize that a choice of Woman-Man, Man-Man, or Woman-Woman couples may not be a good fit for people who don't identify as either gender'. The new update is live for the users who are running the Android P Beta 2 build. The changes are further expected to be rolled out on a wide scale after it is released for the general masses later in July or August 2018.