[UTR#51-8] 1.4.3 Emoji Variation Sequences: Female/Venus and Male/Mars Signs

[Christoph Päper]

<http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-8.html#def_emoji_variation_sequence>

> 2640 FE0E; text style;  # FEMALE SIGN
> 2640 FE0F; emoji style; # FEMALE SIGN
> 2642 FE0E; text style;  # MALE SIGN
> 2642 FE0F; emoji style; # MALE SIGN

Since U+240 and U+2642 double as symbols for the planets (and ancient gods) Venus and Mars, respectively, users will rightfully expect VS-16 to have an effect on the other planet symbols as well (probably including U+2647 Pluto). 

Both symbols are also sometimes used to represent Friday and Tuesday, respectively, so some users may expect the symbols for the other 5 days of the week also react on U+FE0E/F.

 1. Monday    ☽ U+263D Moon or ☾ U+263E
 2. Tuesday   ♂ U+2642 Mars
 3. Wednesday ☿ U+263F Mercury
 4. Thursday  ♃ U+2643 Jupiter
 5. Friday    ♀ U+2640 Venus
 6. Saturday  ♄ U+2644 Saturn 
 7. Sunday    ☉ U+2609 Sun or ☼ U+263C

U+2640/2 are also part of common sets of gender, sex and sexuality symbols which, again, some users will expect to have emoji forms now and – be prepared for the ������ – also work in ZWJ or Open Type ligature sequences. (I’m not sure how lesbian or gay versions of emojis, as proposed before in L2/15-013 for instance, could become anything other than stereotypical through offensive.) The real-world use may be a bit different from what the annotations in the standard say, e.g. distinction of transgender and intersex or sexuality and gender identity:

>   * ⚢ U+26A2 Doubled Female Sign  
>            = lesbianism
>   * ⚣ U+26A3 Doubled Male Sign  
>            • a glyph variant has the two circles on the same line  
>            = male homosexuality
>   * ⚤ U+26A4 Interlocked Female and Male Sign  
>            • a glyph variant has the two circles on the same line  
>            = bisexuality
>   * ⚥ U+26A5 Male and Female Sign  
>            = transgendered sexuality  
>            = hermaphrodite (in entomology)
>   * ⚦ U+26A6 Male with Stroke Sign  
>            = transgendered sexuality
>   * ⚧ U+26A7 Male with Stroke and Male and Female Sign  
>            = transgendered sexuality
>   * ⚲ U+26B2 Neuter

Lastly, the 2 signs are also recognized by Unicode to be alchemical symbols of copper and iron, respectively, but since that set is much larger and even more esoteric I expect not much demand for emoji versions of all of them.

In conclusion, I see no good way other than to add a lot of additional codepoints from the Miscellaneous Symbols block to StandardizedVariants.txt.

Cheers

    Christoph