Emoji 13.0 Unveiled, Coming in 2020 With More Gender-Inclusive Options, Transgender Flag, Bottle-Feeding Parents

Over the last several years, emoji have changed the way we communicate with others, be it on any platform. Emoji are fun, quick-to-share, and offer more value than vanilla text. Each year, we get a set of new emoji to help us express ourselves better. Once these are approved by the Unicode Consortium, technology companies like Google, Apple, Twitter, and others release their version of these emoji and add support on their respective platforms. This year, we're getting 117 new emoji that will be available later in the year as a part of Emoji 13.0.

The Unicode Consortium has released a list of 117 new emoji that will be available on your Android, iPhone, and other devices later this year. The new Emoji 13.0 includes 62 new emoji and 55 gender and skin tone variants. This year, we're also getting more gender-inclusive emoji than ever.

From the 62 new emoji approved by the Unicode Consortium for 2020, there's a new transgender flag and symbol and a bunch of new gender-inclusive emoji in Emoji 13.0. A good number of gender-inclusive emoji were proposed by Google and Microsoft. Besides, there's emoji for bubble tea, people hugging, and even ninja. Last year's emoji included more support for people with disabilities.

Some other notable new emoji that are coming in 2020 include black cat, seal, polar bear, fondue, body parts, person feeding baby, boomerang, smiling face with tear, pinched fingers, and more. Gender-inclusive emoji are also available for Santa Claus in Emoji 13.0.

There's no clear word on when these will be available on your devices yet. But once new emoji are approved, they're released to vendors who release their version of it on their respective platforms by fall every year. So you can expect these new emoji to appear on iMessage, WhatsApp, Twitter, and other platforms by the end this year.