All 86 New iOS Emoji, Ranked by Lesbianism

Apple just released a new update, and this one is perfect for those of us who live on the internet. It’s full of brand-new and updated emoji that will surely make our gay lives easier — some more than others. Let’s count down the list of new emoji by just how lesbian they are.

86. Bacon

Sorry, but at this point, bacon is just too heavily associated with toxic white masculinity.

85. Gorilla

I guess Rosie O’Donnell was in Disney’s Tarzan? Other than that though not a lot of lesbian appeal here.

84. Clown Face

Just nope.

83. Glass of Milk

Wayyyyyy too many lactose intolerant lesbians for this one. Maybe if it was “Glass of Soy Milk” or “Glass of Almond Milk” it’d be higher.

82. Peanuts

Again, lots of lesbians have peanut allergies.

81. Octagonal Sign

Useless.

80. Eagle

Maybe if you’re in an America-Somewhere Else long distance relationship you can use this one.

79. Man Dancing

In my mind this is “Butch Dancing,” but this emoji has bad clothes and bad dance moves, so I still put it low.

78. Handshake

Way too casual for lesbians.

77. Carrot

Carrots are a little gay, I guess?

76. Scooter

Scooters seem pretty gay, but then you think about it and maybe they’re not?

75. Motor Scooter

Same as above.

74. Egg

Too many vegans and too many lesbians who never want kids.

73. Nauseated Face

I like to imagine that lesbians are only ever healthy.

72. Drooling Face

There’s just nothing particularly lesbiany about this.

71. Shallow Pan of Food

Could’ve been higher in a different update, but the other foods added are way gayer.

70. Stuffed Flatbread

I mean, here we are just one spot better and it’s already way more gay.

69. Technologist

Lesbians Who Tech, yay!

68. Goal Net

Reminds me of women’s soccer.

67. Rolling on the Floor Laughing

For all the great queer women and non-binary comedians like Brittani Nichols, Tig Notaro, El Sanchez and Cameron Esposito!

66. Pancakes

Lesbians love brunch.

65. Water Polo

A pretty gay sport.

64. Croissant

Lesbians love brunch, and coffee shops, and the Great British Bake-off.

63. Martial Arts Uniform

Another pretty gay sport.

62. Third Place Medal

For all those third wheels out there!

61. Potato

Literally every lesbian on earth loves potatoes, especially Carrie Wade.

60. Kiwifruit

A lot of lesbians I know eat kiwis with the skin on??? What’s that about?

59. Rhinoceros

Sure, I guess.

58. Fencer

Yet another pretty gay sport.

57. Pilot

Lookin’ good, Captain.

56. Lying Face

Good for when you find out that your partner doesn’t like beer and hiking.

55. Hand With Index and Middle Fingers Crossed

Good for lying to a tinder match by telling her that you like beer and hiking.

54. Mother Christmas

Santa Claus’ real beard.

53. Sneezing Face

Lesbians have so many allergies!

52. Office Worker

Workin’ 9 to 5!

51. Shark

Good for tops looking for a bottom.

50. Pregnant Woman

Yay lesbian moms!!!

49. Duck

Ducks just seem gay I guess.

48. Cucumber

I know I’ve eaten a lot more cucumbers since coming out.

47. Face Palm

Ugh, the patriarchy.

46. Owl

Owls seem gayer than ducks.

45. Health Worker

Like the incredible Dr. Lizz or Luisa from Jane the Virgin.

44. Lizard

Look at that cute little guy.

43. Raised Back of Hand

Good for negotiating spankings.

42. Shrug

Is that girl in the flannel shirt with the undercut and Doc Martens gay or just a hipster? *Shrug emoji*

41. Person Doing Cartweel

For celebrating when someone comes out!

40. Judge

What a great, gay profession.

39. Squid

Squids, like lesbians, are great with their appendages.

38. Handball

This emoji straight up looks like a gay lady.

37. Second Place Medal

Because lesbians are great tryers.

36. Student/Teacher

How many lesbian movies/books/tv shows have been made about this?

35. Green Salad

For all the vegans out there!

34. Shrimp

For all the cute, short lesbians out there!

33. Clinking Glasses

We’re still celebrating that gay marriage is legal, right?

32. Canoe

Great for outdoorsy types. Who love beer and hiking and stuff.

31. Butterfly

The perfect coming out metaphor.

30. Artist

Half the twentysomething lesbians I know are artists.

29. Scientist

Women in STEM!

28. Shopping Cart

For all those trips to Trader Joe’s, the Home Depot and Ikea.

27. Wilted Flower

First lesbian heartbreak. Or second. Or third or fourth or fifth.

26. Tumbler

There’s a reason the whiskey tasting is always so popular at A-Camp.

25. Prince

Look at this cute genderqueer/non-binary/masc of center cutie!

24. Bat

Finally some representation for the goth lesbians.

23. Face with Cowboy Hat

There’s nothing like a good cowgirl.

22. Boxing Glove

One of the gayest sports.

21. Cook

Seriously, half the women on the Food Network are gay.

20. Fox Face

For your foxy friend and you.

19. Juggling

Suspenders? Bowtie? Hat? This girl is gay af.

18. Drum With Drumsticks

I like girls who drum.

17. Astronaut

To celebrate Sally Ride and all the gay astronauts who will come after her.

16. Spoon

Spooning is, like, one of the ten gayest things you can do with someone.

15. Baguette

Lesbians love bread.

14. Deer

Whether it’s Klub Deer or our Queer Deer shirt, you can’t go wrong with this guy.

13. First Place Medal

Because being gay is like winning a prize!

12. Farmer

For those of us who are taking over rural areas.

11. Selfie

I already know, like, seven gay people I’m going to use this one with.

10. Man in Tuxedo

Lesbians look so dang good in tuxedos!

9. Right-Facing Fist/Left Facing Fist

For negotiating fisting.

8. Singer

There’s literally no way this girl isn’t gay.

7. Call Me Hand

This one’s just actually really useful for talking to gay ladies.

6. Factory Worker

Really gay job.

5. Wrestlers

Gayest sport.

4. Firefighter

Really, really gay job.

3. Black Heart

Whether it’s Joan Jett or that girl who ghosted you, this one is all too familiar.

2. Mechanic

Really, really, really gay job.

1. Avocado

Like, this is the only emoji you need if you’re talking to gay women in LA.

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Mey

Mey Rude is a fat, trans, Latina lesbian living in LA. She's a writer, journalist, and a trans consultant and sensitivity reader. You can follow her on twitter, or go to her website if you want to hire her.

Mey has written 572 articles for us.

34 Comments

  2. These are great, but who do I need to complain to to get a roller skate emoji already? All these new gay sport emojis and I still have to use an ice skate to talk about roller derby.

  3. Mey, my only regret is that you didn’t write an article like this for the last iOS update, which included both rainbow flags and tacos.

    Thanks for several minutes’ worth of laughter. :)

  5. That’s not a handshake. That’s hand-holding. Which is as far as a lot of our couples got on network TV.

  8. If 8 doesn’t represent a particular singer/artist who perfectly exemplified genderfluidity and pansexuality.. oh, how fabulously cool they now have an emoji! <3

    (And in late 2017, a colored bronze statue too!)

  10. I’m the only person I know who eats kiwis with the skin on. Glad to know there are other queer ladies out there doing the same. This update is also great news for my brother who is indeed a juggler who is gay.

  12. That bisexual sting. Like. I guess someone will argue “Oh but there are plenty of other articles for you guys on this website too!!” or “with lesbian we obviously imply other queer women as well (:” (which hurts, we shouldn’t be lumped in) or “search engines react better to the word Lesbian!!!” or “Well, this article is just for the lesbians! Better luck next time” (which just hurts even more because it makes me feel like a little kid who gets dismissed with a pet on the head, waiting for the next glimpse of representation)

    I know someone will argue “the site does represent other queer women!” and in general I agree, you do. Which is why this hurts even more. Emojis aren’t lesbian specific, it’s a joke article about queer culture. Couldn’t you at least include one general line at the beginning of articles like this? With the word queer or LGBT+? It’s so, so easy to do. Yet it isn’t being done.

    The non-binary one was good I guess.

    Autostraddle often presents itself as a website for queer women in general. But it doesn’t feel like that with articles like this.

    We shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought.

    I usually love Autostraddle but this article makes me feel so sad.

    I’m so tired. So, so tired.

    • Hi there! I feel you on the tiredness. This is a hard season in a terrible year.

      I’m not sure if you’ve read this yet, but here is what AS says about how they use labels in their titles and content:

      From their comment policy (https://develop.autostraddle.com/comment-policy/)

      “H. A Note On Language: Ours and Yours

      The people who read this site go by a variety of labels — lesbian, queer, bisexual, gay, pansexual, dyke, homosexual, sexually fluid or none/all of the above. Although many humans believe that queer is a catch-all, it actually isn’t — lots of women ID as “lesbian” or “gay” or “bisexual” but not “queer” (and vice versa, of course). Many consider “queer” to be a slur. Until we can get that meeting we requested with the Oxford English Dictionary or those dead white men who created this language, we’re in quite a conundrum when it comes to picking the “right” words to use on this website. Please trust that if you had walked even half a mile in our shoes, you would understand that we’re doing the absolute best we can.

      Because the word “lesbian” is the only word specifically defined as a descriptor of female homosexuals, that’s the word that makes our content easiest to find on search engines — queer, gay, bisexual and LGBT can all turn up a bunch of male-oriented results. So we use “lesbian” in a lot of headlines, but also we often use it as an adjective describing a thing rather than a person. For example, a lesbian storyline features a love story between two women, regardless of either women’s chosen label. When we say “lesbian sex,” we’re talking about sex between two women, regardless of those women’s orientations. Furthermore, we can’t list the actual sexual orientation of every person in an article in the headline, because headlines can only be 12 words long. The relatively recent launch of Buzzfeed LGBT and HuffPo Gay Voices have killed our search engine referrals (in a roundabout way, big companies can essentially pay for higher search rankings), so making our content as easy to find as possible is really important to us.

      Mostly, we switch it up! We use gay sometimes, queer sometimes, other words at other times. All our writers are free to use whichever words feel right to them in their writing. Most of us here don’t really care which label you use to describe us, and for that reason and many others, we aren’t interested in spending our finite time on earth on intracommunity debates over language choices, especially debates that condemn female pronouns or the word “lesbian” or involve fictional characters. If you wanna do that then that’s cool, just do it somewhere else.

      We hope y’all can trust us that we’re not attempting to “erase” anybody, we’re just human beings doing the best we can with the words we have. When readers police us or each other for not using the “right” words, that can be very alienating to readers who aren’t privy to the generational attitudes or the academic communities where “queer” is considered a catch-all. We want this to be a place where you can be proud to rock whatever label you want (we do!): lesbian, queer, bisexual, bananasexual, awesomesexual, and we will never tell you that you’re using the wrong word to describe yourself, intentionally mislabel a real human being in context (for example, if you’re included in a list post headlined “Top Ten Queer Politicians Rocking Our World” and you identify as bisexual, we’ll identify you as bisexual when we talk about you specifically in the post itself) or invalidate your own freedom to identify as you see fit.”

    • “Emojis aren’t lesbian specific, it’s a joke article about queer culture.”

      Is it though? Because “queer culture” also includes men. And the adjective “queer” tends to be used in a much different context when describing things or culture rather than people… like it’s more about something being edgy and counterculture and representing a wide variety of genders and not-straight sexual orientations than it is specifically about women who are dating other women.

      here we’re using lesbian as an adjective about elements of lady-specific queer culture. And like queer girl explained, our choices are limited, and we do our best to spread the love. and SEO does matter, there is no “but…” to that.

      and i think “lesbian culture” includes a lot of things that are beloved or relatable to people who identify otherwise. And I like the word lesbian and I like lesbian culture and I like talking about it. Lesbians may not be the oppressed group within LGBTQ female culture, but lesbians are still an oppressed group within the culture at large, and dismissing the term as inherently exclusionary/problematic really rubs me the wrong way. many lesbians do not identify as queer and don’t feel included when we use that word.

      “Autostraddle often presents itself as a website for queer women in general. But it doesn’t feel like that with articles like this.”

      why is it okay for us to write articles specifically for bisexual women — which we do — but it’s not okay for us to write articles that use the word “lesbian”? i find this logic puzzling.

      (also “ranked by lesbianism” is literally the name of this particular series!)

      DONALD TRUMP IS OUR PRESIDENT-ELECT !!! YOU KNOW???

  13. Wow this is amazing.

    My new goal is to find some way to organically use all 86 of these in a single conversation. It will happen.

  19. #32 my middle school principal was such a dyke and she ran a CANOE-BUILDING CLUB. Not a canoeing club. CANOE. BUILDING.

  20. Motor scooter is very gay and speaks to my “going to intern in Europe and have a torrid love affair with a beautiful butch Italian woman a la The Lizze McGuire Movie” life.

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