Gender symbol

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Image shows male and female symbols incised deeply
Gender 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 Script error: No such module "Lang". (1767) and Script error: No such module "Lang". (1771), Carl Linnaeus regularly used the planetary symbols of Mars, Venus and MercuryTemplate:SndTemplate:Char, Template:Char, Template:CharTemplate:Sndfor male, female and hermaphroditic (perfect) flowers, respectively.[1] Botanists now use Template:Char for the last.[2]

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

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

Biology and medicine

Template:Infobox symbol The three standard sex symbols in biology are male Template:Char, female Template:Char and hermaphroditic Template:Char; originally the symbol for Mercury, Template:Char, 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]Template:Efn

Genealogy

File:Eg-filiation.svg
Minimal kinship chart: a male and female producing male and female offspring

Kinship charts use a triangle Template:Char for male and circle Template:Char for female.[5] Pedigree charts published in scientific papers use an earlier anthropological convention of a square Template:Char for male and a circle Template:Char for female.[6]

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').[7] 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.[8]

Public toilets

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The modern gender symbols used for public toilets, Template:Char for male and Template:Char for female, are pictograms created for the British Rail system in the mid-1960s.[9] 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 Template:Char or like a crescent Moon Template:Char, respectively, to indicate whether the toilet was for use by boys or girls.[10] The British Rail pictogramsTemplate:Sndoften color-coded blue and redScript error: No such module "Unsubst".Template:Sndare 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 countriesTemplate:Sndfor example, the circle-and-triangle variantsFile:Male public toilet icon.svg (male) and File:Female public toilet icon.svg (female) commonly found on portable toilets, sometimes abstracted further to a triangle Template:Char (representing a skirt or dress) for female and an inverted triangle Template:Char (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.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".

In Poland, an inverted triangle Template:Char is used for male while a circle Template:Char is used for female.[3]

In mainland China, silhouettes of heads in profile may be used as gender pictograms,Script error: No such module "Unsubst". generally alongside the Chinese characters for male (男) and female (女).[11]

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.[12][13]

Sexual orientation and gender politics

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File:Westerkerk - Gay symbols 2.jpg
Lesbian 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 Template:Char are used to represent gay men while two interlocking female symbols Template:Char are often used to represent lesbians.[14] Two female and two male symbols interlocked represent bisexuality, while an interlocked female and male symbol

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Template:Redirect category shell represents heterosexuality.[15]

The combined male-female symbol Template:Char is used to represent androgyne people;[16] when additionally combined with the female

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Template:Redirect category shell and male

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Template:Redirect category shell symbols to create the symbol Template:Char, it indicates gender inclusivity,Script error: No such module "Unsubst". though it is also used as a transgender symbol.[17][18][16] The male-with-stroke symbol

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Template:Redirect category shell is used for transgender people.[16]

The Mercury symbol

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Template:Redirect category shell and combined female/male symbol

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Template:Redirect category shell have both been used to represent intersex people.[19][15] The alchemical symbol for sublimate of antimony

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Template:Redirect category shell is used to represent non-binary people. The neuter symbol

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Template:Redirect category shell is also used to represent non-binary people, especially those who are neutrois or of a neutral gender.[15] A featureless circle Template:Char is also used to represent non-binary people, especially those who are agender or genderless, as well as asexuality.[20][15]

Since the 2000s, numerous variants of gender symbols have been introduced in the context of LGBT culture and politics.[15] Some of these symbols have been adopted into Unicode (in the Miscellaneous Symbols block) beginning with version 4.1 in 2005.

Encoding

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Unicode Standard name Symbol Associated remark in the standard[16][21]
Template:Unichar File:Male symbol (fixed width).svg ♂
Template:Unichar File:Venus symbol (fixed width).svg ♀
Template:Unichar File:Male and female sign.svg ⚥ Intersex, androgynous; hermaphrodite (in botany)
Template:Unichar File:Androgyny symbol (fixed width).svg ⚦ Transgender
Template:Unichar File:Gender sign.svg ⚧ Transgender
Template:Unichar File:Fire symbol (alchemical).svg △
Template:Unichar File:Water symbol (alchemical).svg ▽
Template:Unichar File:Square symbol.svg □
Template:Unichar File:Full moon symbol.svg ○ Asexuality, sexless, genderless
Template:Unichar File:Silicon symbol (Dalton).svg 🟕
Template:Unichar File:Emoji u1f6b9.svg 🚹︎ Man symbol; men's restroom
Template:Unichar File:Emoji u1f6ba.svg 🚺︎ Woman symbol; women's restroom
Template:Unichar File:Boy silhouette.png 🛉︎
Template:Unichar File:Girl silhouette.png 🛊︎
Template:Unichar File:Aseos Públicos.jpgFile:Emoji u1f6bb.svg 🚻︎ Man and woman symbol with divider; unisex restroomTemplate:Efn

See also

Notes

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References

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External links

Template:Sister project

Template:Sexual identities

  1. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  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. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". (includes picture of the ideogram, which is copyright).
  10. ↑ Eric Sloane (1972, 2007) The Little Red Schoolhouse: A Sketchbook of Early American Education. Doubleday & Co.; Dover Books.
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Schwartz, M. (2018). Inclusive Restroom Design. Library Journal, 143(8), 28–31.
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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