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A bisexual activist asked for a bi flag emoji. The group that governs emojis said no.

A bisexual flag at Pride in London in 2019.
A bisexual flag at Pride in London in 2019. Photo: Shutterstock

A bisexual community advocate has created a petition to get the Unicode Consortium to recognize an emoji representing the bisexual flag.

Currently, most platforms allow users to use the rainbow flag and the transgender flag as emoji. But none have stepped up to create a pink, purple, and blue bisexual flag emoji.

Related: Your emoji is about to update again & this time it’s particularly queer

Earlier this year, community advocate Tanner Marino sent the Unicode Consortium a request for a bisexual flag emoji, saying that it would be “general enough to express both community affiliation and sexual orientation.”

The request said that the symbol is one of the only ones that represents bisexual people as a whole and that it would be one of the few ways that bi people could represent their identities with a symbol.

“Heterosexual and homosexual relations can be represented through the use of gendered emoji, from the couple holding hands to the same-sex parent families,” Marino’s request said. “There is no current way to express ‘I am bisexual’ in emoji, making bisexuality underrepresented compared to the current standard for heterosexuality and homosexuality.”

A month later, Marino wrote in a blog post, the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee told him that they rejected his proposal.

“I knew this wouldn’t be easy from the start,” he wrote. “The transgender flag emoji required multiple submissions, a team of people, and intense media coverage.”

Now there’s a Change.org petition for the bisexual flag emoji that has gotten over 6500 signatures.

“Emojis are a way for the world to connect and express themselves – regardless or region or language – and bisexual people shouldn’t be left out,” the petition says. “The bisexual community is home to those in between, for all the shades – ‘shades of gay’ – in what is often assumed to be one or the other: bisexuals, pansexuals, omnisexuals, queers, non-straight individuals, or anyone who doesn’t quite fit the otherwise binary ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ pattern.”

Transgender community advocates pushed for the trans flag emoji for years. Earlier in 2020, the Unicode Consortium approved it.

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