- Republicans criticized Apple over the release of its
pregnant man emoji . - The symbols are part of a wider reform which adds more emojis online.
Republicans and their media allies over the weekend criticized Apple for releasing a new emoji depicting a pregnant man.
Apple is releasing the image as art of an iOS update. The emoji is also due to feature on Android devices in a forthcoming update, and on other services later in 2022.
The responses show the latest facet of the culture war raging between conservatives and liberals.
Sean Spicer, who served as White House Press Secretary to Donald Trump and currently hosts a show on the right-wing Newsmax network, mocked the emoji.
—Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) January 30, 2022
"In college I satisfied the science requirement by taking geology — now I see what I missed — those biology classes would have helped explain the new pregnant man emoji," he wrote.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, used the release of the emoji in a dig at the furor surrounding podcaster Joe Rogan's promotion of COVID misinformation on Spotify.
—Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 29, 2022
"The same week the Left is begging to cancel @JoeRogan for "misinformation", @Apple creates a pregnant man emoji. I just can't," she said.
Last week
"In the real world, men can very easily get pregnant if they don't take proper precautions. Watch out, guys. It could happen to you," he remarked, sarcastically.
The new slate of emojis, that also includes an emoji of a pregnant person with no specific gender, was made available by Apple last week in a new beta version of the iOS 15.4 software update.
The decision to include the emojis was made by the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit industry body that regulates how characters display online, including the release of new emojis.
Jeremy Burge, the founder of Emojipedia who sits in some Unicode meetings, wrote in July 2021 that the new symbols reflect that "pregnancy is possible for some transgender men and non-binary people."
Republicans have long rallied around opposition to some transgender and non-binary rights issues.
Wisconsin Republicans recently introduced a bill to restrict the age at which gender confirmation surgeries can be performed.
It's one of a number of bills being pushed by Republicans at state level to restrict access to gender confirming surgeries, and stop transgender youths participating in some sports competitions.