Live data from Hacker News

Why the trans flag emoji is the 5-codepoint sequence it is

hecate.pink

11–20 of 111 posts

Re: Why the trans flag emoji is the 5-codepoint sequence it is

#13

[flagged]

there is already a swastika unicode glyph. As for the Confederate Flag, they will probably be confused as, if added to unicode, it would likely be rendered as one of the actual confederate flag designs rather than the one which has become popular in recent decades.

Re: Why the trans flag emoji is the 5-codepoint sequence it is

#15

[flagged]

You're getting a bunch of joking shitpost replies, but a useful answer is that it's very common for people to become furries first and then later realize they are trans, presumably because the feelings of body dysmorphia convince you that something is mismatched between your felt sense and outward appearance, but you only nail it down as gender dysphoria later.

Re: Why the trans flag emoji is the 5-codepoint sequence it is

#16

[flagged]

Not possible.

The Unicode Consortium will no longer accept proposals for flags.

https://unicode.org/emoji/proposals.html#Region_Flags_Withou...

Actually, they can do it by adding a new ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code. By splitting a country or merging several.

Re: Why the trans flag emoji is the 5-codepoint sequence it is

#19

[flagged]

there is already a swastika unicode glyph. As for the Confederate Flag, they will probably be confused as, if added to unicode, it would likely be rendered as one of the actual confederate flag designs rather than the one which has become popular in recent decades.

> there is already a swastika unicode glyph

It's a Chinese character and there are two variants. The left-hand variant (卍) represents 和 (peace) in religious contexts, whereas the right-hand variant represents 力 (power). The specific glyph the Nazis co-opted is the right-hand variant, and it is considered inappropriate to use in the West (for this reason, I am not reproducing the character here).

The glyph appears in texts predating the existence of Nazi Germany, and I assume that is the reason the Unicode Consortium has not removed the glyph yet.

Note that I am not defending this decision (nor the usage of the glyph today). One could argue that historians should use a special font that can render these two glyphs, but the problem is likely a lot more subtle than I am thinking.

As an aside: the left-hand variant is used in Japanese maps to mark the location of Buddhist temples.

Post reply on HN