Gender symbol

Short description: Symbols of gender, sex, or sexuality

"♀" and "♂" redirect here. For their use for Venus and Mars, see Planet symbols. For their use for copper and iron, see Alchemical symbol.

Not to be confused with Sex symbol.

Image shows male and female symbols incised deeplyGender symbols on a public toilet in Switzerland

A gender symbol is a pictogram or glyph used to represent sex and gender, for example in biology and medicine, in genealogy, or in the sociological fields of gender politics, LGBT subculture and identity politics.

In his books Mantissa Plantarum (1767) and Mantissa Plantarum Altera (1771), Carl Linnaeus regularly used the planetary symbols of Mars, Venus and Mercury - ♂, ♀, ☿ - for male, female and hermaphroditic (perfect) flowers, respectively.[1] Botanists now use ⚥ for the last.[2]

In genealogy, including kinship in anthropology and pedigrees in animal husbandry, the geometric shapes △ or □ are used for male and ○ for female. These are also used on public toilets in some countries.

The modern international pictograms used to indicate male and female public toilets, 🚹︎ and 🚺︎, became widely used in the 1960s and 1970s. They are sometimes abstracted to ▽ for male and △ for female.[3]

## Contents

* 1 Biology and medicine
* 2 Genealogy
* 3 Public toilets
* 4 Sexual orientation and gender politics
* 5 Encoding
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 References
* 9 External links

## Biology and medicine

♂ ♀ ⚥
△ □ ○

Gender symbol

In Unicode|

* U+2642 ♂ MALE SIGN
* U+2640 ♀ FEMALE SIGN
* U+26A5 ⚥ MALE AND FEMALE SIGN
* U+25B3 △ THITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE
* U+25A1 □ WHITE SQUARE
* U+25CB ○ WHITE CIRCLE

The three standard sex symbols in biology are male ♂, female ♀ and hermaphroditic ⚥; originally the symbol for Mercury, ☿, was used for the last. These symbols were first used by Carl Linnaeus in 1751 to denote whether flowers were male (stamens only), female (pistil only) or perfect flowers with both pistils and stamens.[1] (Most flowering and conifer plant species are hermaphroditic and either bear flowers/cones that themselves are hermaphroditic, or bear both male and female flowers/cones on the same plant.) These symbols are now ubiquitous in biology and medicine to indicate the sex of an individual, for example of a patient.[4][lower-alpha 1]

## Genealogy

Minimal kinship chart: a male and female producing male and female offspring

Kinship charts use a triangle △ for male and circle ○ for female.[6] Pedigree charts published in scientific papers use an earlier anthropological convention of a square □ for male and a circle ○ for female.[7]

Before a shape distinction was adopted, all individuals had been represented by a circle in Morgan's 1871 System of Consanguinity and Affinity of Human Family, where gender is encoded in the abbreviations for the kin relation (e.g. M for 'mother' and F for 'father').[8] W. H. R. Rivers distinguished gender in the words of the language being recorded by writing male kinship terms in all capitals and female kinship terms with normal capitalization. That convention was quite influential for a time, and his convention of prioritizing male kin by placing them to the left and females to the right continues to this day though there have been exceptions, such as Margaret Mead, who placed females to the left.[9]

## Public toilets

The modern gender symbols used for public toilets, 🚹︎ for male and 🚺︎ for female, are pictograms created for the British Rail system in the mid-1960s.[10] Before that, local usage had been more variable. For example, schoolhouse outhouses in the 19th-century United States had ventilation holes in their doors that were shaped like a starburst Sun ✴ or like a crescent Moon ☾, respectively, to indicate whether the toilet was for use by boys or girls.[11] The British Rail pictograms - often color-coded blue and red[citation needed] - are now the norm for marking public toilets in much of the world, with the female symbol distinguished by a triangular skirt or dress, and in early years (and sometimes still) the male symbol stylized like a tuxedo.[3]

These symbols are abstracted to varying degrees in different countries - for example, the circle-and-triangle variants24x24px (male) and 24px (female) commonly found on portable toilets, sometimes abstracted further to a triangle △ (representing a skirt or dress) for female and an inverted triangle ▽ (representing a broad-shouldered tuxedo) for male in Lithuania.[3]

In elementary schools, the pictograms may be of children rather than of adults, with the girl distinguished by her hair. In themed locations, such as bars and tourist attractions, a thematic image or figurine of a man and woman or boy and girl may be used.[citation needed]

In Poland, an inverted triangle ▽ is used for male while a circle ○ is used for female.[3]

In mainland China, silhouettes of heads in profile may be used as gender pictograms,[citation needed] generally alongside the Chinese characters for male (男) and female (女).[12]

Some contemporary designs for restroom signage in public spaces are shifting away from symbols that demonstrate gender as binary as a way to be more inclusive.[13][14]

* Standard American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) symbols

* Non-AIGA women's symbol on a legally mandated circular background in US

* Non-AIGA men's symbol on a legally mandated triangular background in US

* Gender-neutral sign in US, composed of legally mandated circle and triangle

Gender-neutral sign in US, composed of legally mandated circle and triangle

* Accessible gender-neutral sign icon

Accessible gender-neutral sign icon

* Idiosyncratic unisex restroom in US (see LGBT symbols)

Idiosyncratic unisex restroom in US (see LGBT symbols)

* Public toilet in China, with female silhouette to the left and male to the right

Public toilet in China, with female silhouette to the left and male to the right

* Idiosyncratic symbols in Japan

* Humorous symbols in Austria

* Semi-triangular tuxedo and dress shapes in Hungary

* Triangle-plus-circle symbols in Austria

* Circle (female) and inverted triangle (male) in Poland

Circle (female) and inverted triangle (male) in Poland

* Sign in Romania, with men's and women's shoes representing gender

* Male, female and hijra (trans) public toilets in India

Male, female and hijra (trans) public toilets in India

* Signs in the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid; the male is depicted with a large upper body and the female with wide hips

Signs in the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid; the male is depicted with a large upper body and the female with wide hips

* Rainbow accessible multigender icon with gender-neutral word

Rainbow accessible multigender icon with gender-neutral word

* A bathroom sign in the US showing a transgender flag across a woman's bathroom symbol

A bathroom sign in the US showing a transgender flag across a woman's bathroom symbol

## Sexual orientation and gender politics

File:Westerkerk - Gay symbols 2.jpgLesbian and gay male interlocked gender sex symbols

Since the 1970s, variations of gender symbols have been used to express sexual orientation and gender politics. Two interlocking male symbols ⚣ are used to represent gay men while two interlocking female symbols ⚢ are often used to represent lesbians.[15] Two female and two male symbols interlocked represent bisexuality, while an interlocked female and male symbol ⚤ represents heterosexuality.[16]

The combined male-female symbol ⚥ is used to represent androgyne people.[17]

The male-with-stroke symbol ⚦ is also used for transgender people;[17] when additionally combined with the female ♀ and male ♂ symbols to create the symbol ⚧, it indicates transgender people or gender inclusivity[citation needed][18][19][17].

The Mercury symbol ☿ and combined female/male symbol ⚥ have both been used to represent intersex people.[20][16] The alchemical symbol for sublimate of antimony 🜬 is used to represent non-binary people. The neuter symbol ⚲ is also used to represent non-binary people, especially those who are neutrois or of a neutral gender.[16] A featureless circle ⚪︎ is also used to represent non-binary people, especially those who are agender or genderless, as well as asexuality.[21][16]

Since the 2000s, numerous variants of gender symbols have been introduced in the context of LGBT culture and politics.[16] Some of these symbols have been adopted into Unicode (in the Miscellaneous Symbols block) beginning with version 4.1 in 2005.

## Encoding

| This table contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

|

These symbols are those that have code points allocated by the Unicode Consortium. For additional symbols, see LGBT symbols § Encoding.

For information on entering these symbols in a document, see Unicode input.

Unicode Standard name | Symbol | Associated remark in the standard[17][22]

|
|

U+2642 ♂ | File:Male symbol (fixed width).svg | ♂ |
U+2640 ♀ |  | ♀ |
U+26A5 ⚥ |  | ⚥ | Intersex, androgynous; hermaphrodite (in botany)
U+26A6 ⚦ | File:Androgyny symbol (fixed width).svg | ⚦ | Transgender
U+26A7 ⚧ | File:Gender sign.svg | ⚧ | Transgender
U+25B3 △ |  | △ |
U+25BD ▽ |  | ▽ |
U+25A1 □ |  | □ |
U+25CB ○ |  | ○ | Asexuality, sexless, genderless
U+1F7D5 🟕 |  | 🟕 |
U+1F6B9 🚹 |  | 🚹︎ | Man symbol; men's restroom
U+1F6BA 🚺 |  | 🚺︎ | Woman symbol; women's restroom
U+1F6C9 🛉 | 24px | 🛉︎ |
U+1F6CA 🛊 | 24px | 🛊︎ |
U+1F6BB 🚻 |  | 🚻︎ | Man and woman symbol with divider; unisex restroom[lower-alpha 2]

## See also

* Symbol - Something that represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity
* List of symbols - None
* Fertility symbol
* LGBTQ symbols
* Miscellaneous Symbols - Unicode block
* Sex symbol
* grammatical gender
* Semiotics

## Notes

1. ↑ In the biological sense of the word, there are no human (or mammalian) hermaphrodites, but 'hermaphodite' has long been used for ambisexual people who are now more commonly labeled intersex.[5]
2. ↑ This symbol is often seen on an outer door leading to separate facilities behind inner doors, in which case the glyph has a dividing line separating the men and women symbols

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Stearn, William T. (May 1962). "The Origin of the Male and Female Symbols of Biology". Taxon 11 (4): 109–113. doi:10.2307/1217734.
2. ↑ Niki Simpson, Botanical symbols: a new symbol set for new images, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 162, Issue 2, February 2010, Pages 117–129
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Glancey, Jonathan (11 September 2014). "The genius behind the stick figure toilet signs". http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140911-the-genius-of-toilet-signs. "In Poland, meanwhile, you can come across lavatories indicating 'gents' with a triangle and 'ladies' with a circle, while in Lithuania men are represented by an inverted pyramid and women by a pyramid standing the right way up. [...] One of the best early examples of intuitive global signs for public lavatories was that created for British Rail in the mid-1960s. [...] In the 1970s, the British example was developed on a more comprehensive basis in the United States. In 1974, the US Department of Transportation commissioned the American Institute of Graphic Arts to create a set of pictograms to be used throughout public transport networks whether road, rail, air or sea."
4. ↑ Han, Zhigang et al. (25 September 2009). "A HIV-1 heterosexual transmission chain in Guangzhou, China: a molecular epidemiological study". Virology Journal (BioMed Central) 6 (148): Figure 1. doi:10.1186/1743-422X-6-148. PMID 19778458. "(Mars male gender symbol) indicates male; (female Venus gender symbol) indicates female".
5. ↑ Alice Domurat Dreger (1998) Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex
6. ↑ Lumen Learning. "8.1: Kinship Diagrams". https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Anthropology/Cultural_Anthropology/Cultural_Anthropology_(Evans)/08:_Kinship/8.01:_Kinship_Diagrams.
7. ↑ Schott, G D (24 Dec 2005). "Sex symbols ancient and modern: their origins and iconography on the pedigree". BMJ (British Medical Journal) 331 (7531): 1509–1510. doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7531.1509. PMID 16373733.
8. ↑ Morgan, Lewis Henry (1870). Systems of consanguinity and affinity of the human family. University of California Libraries. [Washington, Smithsonian Institution. http://archive.org/details/systemsofconsang00morgrich.
9. ↑ Wilson, Ara (2018-07-24). "Visual Kinship" (in en). https://histanthro.org/clio/visual-kinship/.
10. ↑ Glancey, Jonathan (11 September 2014). "The genius behind stick figure toilet signs". BBC. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140911-the-genius-of-toilet-signs. "Classics of design: One of the best early examples of intuitive global signs for public lavatories was that created for British Rail in the mid-1960s. As part of a major modernisation programme, the state railway was given a new and all-embracing corporate identity by DRU [Design Research Unit], a design studio founded by Marcus Brumwell and Misha Black in 1943. Working with Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir, who designed a distinctive Rail Alphabet typeface based on Helvetica, DRU devised a clean-cut and convincingly modern aesthetic that was applied to all locomotives, trains, stations, published material and, yes, signs for lavatories." (includes picture of the ideogram, which is copyright).
11. ↑ Eric Sloane (1972, 2007) The Little Red Schoolhouse: A Sketchbook of Early American Education. Doubleday & Co.; Dover Books.
12. ↑ Summers, Josh (2020-11-19). "Chinese Toilet | What to Expect (including Squat Toilets)" (in en-US). https://www.travelchinacheaper.com/china-toilets-guide.
13. ↑ Schwartz, M. (2018). Inclusive Restroom Design. Library Journal, 143(8), 28–31.
14. ↑ Dobson, Terry (Winter 2017). "Tip of the Icon: Examining Socially Symbolic Indexical Signage". Dialectic I (1). doi:10.3998/dialectic.14932326.0001.106. ISSN 2572-7001.
15. ↑ "Symbolism". Eastern Illinois University. http://castle.eiu.edu/~lgbtqa/symbolism.php. "Since the 1970s, gays have used double interlocking male symbols to represent gay men. Double interlocking female symbols are often been used  [sic] to symbolize lesbianism, but some feminists have instead used the double female symbols to represent sisterhood among women and three interlocking female symbols to denote lesbianism."
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 McElroy, D.R. (2020). Signs & Symbols of the World: Over 1,001 Visual Signs Explained. London, United Kingdom: The Quarto Group. ISBN 9781577151869.
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 "Miscellaneous Symbols | Gender symbols". Unicode Consortium. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2600.pdf.
18. ↑ "Transgender Symbol". July 1994. https://www.gendertalk.com/tg-symbol/.
19. ↑ "History of Transgender Symbolism". 2015. http://transgendersociety.yolasite.com/history-of-transgender-symbolism.php.
20. ↑ Eigtved, Martin LeBlanc. "Mercury, hermaphrodite, intersex, gender, sex, gender identity, sexuality icon". https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/7275666/mercury_hermaphrodite_intersex_gender_sex_gender_identity_sexuality_icon.
21. ↑ "Unicode Asexuality Character". 6 November 2022. https://www.sexualdiversity.org/edu/symbols/emoji/1065.php.
22. ↑ "Transport and Map Symbols - Range: 1F680–1F6FF - 1F6B9". Unicode Consortium. https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F680.pdf.

## External links

* v
* t
* e

Gender and sexual identities

Gender
identities|

| Genders|

* Man
* Woman
* Male
* Female
* Androgynos
* Androgyne
* Boi
* Cisgender
* Cross-dresser
* Gender bender
* Gender neutrality
* Non-binary (or genderqueer)
* Postgenderism
* Gender variance
* Transgender
* Trans man
* Trans woman
* Transsexual

|

Third genders
or third sexes|

* Akava'ine
* Bakla
* Bugis genders
* Bissu
* Calabai
* Calalai
* Chibados
* Enaree
* Eunuch
* Fa'afafine
* Fakaleiti
* Femminiello
* Galli
* Hijra
* Kathoey
* Khanith
* Köçek
* Koekchuch
* Māhū
* Mak nyah
* Mukhannathun
* Muxe
* Nullo
* Sworn virgin
* Rae-rae
* Takatāpui
* Travesti
* Tumtum
* Two-spirit
* Lhamana
* Nádleehi

Sexual
orientation
identities|

| Sexual orientations|

* Asexual
* Bisexual
* Heterosexual
* Homosexual

|

Alternative labels|

* Banjee
* Bi-curious
* Ex-gay
* Ex-ex-gay
* Gay
* Gray asexual
* Heteroflexible
* Lesbian
* Non-heterosexual
* Pansexual
* Polysexual
* Queer
* Questioning
* Same gender loving

Social aspects|

* Sociosexual orientation
* Antisexuality
* Monogamy
* Non-monogamy
* Polyamorous
* Asociality
* Homosociality
* Heterosociality

Other|

* Analloeroticism
* Androphilia and gynephilia
* Attraction to transgender people
* Kinsey scale
* Monosexuality
* Romantic orientation

See also|

* Gender roles
* Intersex
* Sex and gender distinction
* Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
* Social construction of gender

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