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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2019 and 15 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sashaver82.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 22:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Can anyone refer to a web resource that proves the meaning as a gender symbol of the saggitarius and the earth symbols? I translated the articel into german ( Gender-Symbol) but omitted these symbols for lack of any evidence. -- Mosmas 14:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
There is an even older symbol for gender and this symbol is commonly used in the social sciences. Triangle and Circle. Triangle stands for male and Circle stands for female. This is often seen in kinship charts (think anthropology). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.30.141 ( talk) 06:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Could anyone direct me to a font that can display the symbols used on this article? Only Mars, Venus and Mercury are displayed correctly for me. Geemer ( talk) 13:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I seek a child symbol to go along with the female symbol and the male symbol. If such a symbol exists, this article may document it. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.28.185.40 ( talk) 20:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
why are the hermaphrodite and neuter symbols is in the LGBT section? i can understand the lesbian, gay and transgender symbols being there, but the hermaphrodite and neuter symbols are listed as biological symbols in places such as my funk & wagnalls standard desk dictionary. this seems to suggest that they are the official symbols, and apply to other organisms and plants, not specifically to the lgbt culture, as this article seems to suggest. also the neuter symbol does not display correctly on my screen. perhaps we'd be better off with pictures for all. (sorry, i have no idea why my addition keeps popping up in odd places) Fantiquitous ( talk) 14:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree, the use of LGBT culture as a heading here is incorrect and unrepresentative of the symbols entire "gender" meaning - many of these symbols have been adapted to LGBT culture rather than created by it. They're uses originating in scientific rather than "gender" culture(would be more correct than LGBT). I propose this page would be more useful and encyclopaedic if it was changed to a basic list of the symbols (Symbols/unicode/name etc, ie the facts) with any relevant cultural information/use expanded on below it. If no-one objects I will do this as soon as I get chance and I can probably prepare/add some citations to the use of male/female/Hermaphrodite/neuter/transgender symbols in the Correspondence of Charles Darwin. 131.111.184.99 ( talk) 12:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.199.45 ( talk) 09:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
In all my gender studies, I have always seen the Mercury symbol used to represent hermaphrodites. This article is the first I have ever seen that says it is used for "virgin females." 71.91.58.31 ( talk) 00:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
This is a harmfully wrong representation of the mercury sign, labelling it a transgender sign, conflating transgender with intersex. The Mercury was used in Alchemy and in early biology and botany as a sign for Hermaphrodite. -- Blivet01 ( talk) 08:04, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Might include some alternative symbols, or symbols from non-Western cultures: AnonMoos ( talk) 18:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Context |
Egyptian |
East Asian |
Cuneiform |
Toilet signs | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Woman/ Female |
|
女 |
||||
Man/ Male |
|
男 |
P.S. Not sure that there's a single cuneiform sign which indicated male/man in all the situations where indicated female/woman, but a single vertical stroke was used as a marker before masculine names... AnonMoos ( talk) 22:11, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
(Please excuse my poor english) The two male and female symboles although giving a symbolic biological difference between male and female in their design (Forward arrow pointing up as a phallic symbol and female cross birth giving representation) also differentiate the male and female psychological differences: MALE: Future-oriented FEMALE: Grounded into the present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.249.57.28 ( talk) 10:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
What's the connection that Volvo (car/truck manufacturer) is listed in the "See also" section? 88.202.32.87 ( talk) 21:32, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
There appear to be numerous unreferenced statements in this article. I've added some citations for the scientific and historic usage. This reference could be of use, but I can't find a copy of it.
Lewis, Nolan, DC. "The Sexual Significance of Ancient Chemical Symbols." Psychoanalytic Review 14.2 (1927): 200-206.
I've only found one source that looks reliable for recent LGBT use for five of the symbols. Claims such as "It also means ‘other’ gender" etc. need to be sourced. -- mikeu talk 17:58, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Supposedly in pre-1850 rural schools in the United States, a sun symbol meant a boys' outhouse, while a crescent symbol meant a girls' outhouse. [1] -- AnonMoos ( talk) 08:35, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Aha! The Outhouse Museum in Colome, SD has a duplex outhouse with a 5-pt star in the door to the left and a crescent moon in the door to the right. [2] I wonder then if the crescent-and-star symbol indicated a unisex toilet? — kwami ( talk) 22:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
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In the article, the author does mention where the symbols originated (Mars and Venus symbols), but I think that relating the symbols to the masculine and feminine ideals society has on the symbols would also be important to the article. For example, talking more about the connection between Mars with hard, red metal like iron and Venus with the soft metal that can turn green, copper. I think that the significance between the origin of the sign and its namesake are connected through sociological ideas about what a male and a female are, tough and soft. Sashaver82 ( talk) 05:05, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
I deleted this section partly because it reads like someone's essay plan but mainly because it is based on a erroneous foundation that has persisted to this day despite being dismissed repeatedly over the past 200 years. These symbols do not refer to the 'shield and spear of Mars or Venus's looking glass', they are evolutions of the initial letters of the Greek names of the planets. For an explanation, see the New Scientist article by Dr. William Stearn. Consequently, the citations supporting the material I deleted fail the wp:reliable source test. There is certainly a need for some material on the symbolism but this is not it. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:54, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
What is the scientific name for these? I assume there are wikipages to them. Shouldn't this article hold links to them? e.g. [3] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2020/02/exploring-britains-landscapes-of-love-and-lust and Yoni. Thy, SvenAERTS ( talk) 14:57, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Part of the reason why this article was not formerly fully sourced to Unicode was that Unicode defined U26A4 as "bisexuality", while in the real world this is used much more often to mean "heterosexuality". But from what's linked to from the article now, it seems that Unicode has fixed this... AnonMoos ( talk) 18:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I think I found the problem. In botany, perfect flowers, symbolized ⚥, are more often called 'bisexual' these days than 'hermaphroditic'. — kwami ( talk) 03:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
We need to add the cis and trans gender signs to this article -- 15:28, 8 March 2021 71.195.245.66
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect ⚧️. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 March 10#⚧️ until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. – MJL ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
...don't belong here and I deleted the para. It was a WP:FORK of planetary symbol and related articles. Also, the Stearns ref we had was dated and now known to be wrong: only Jupiter and Saturn are known to derive from abbreviations (zeta + stroke and kappa-rho + stroke, respectively). Mercury is universally thought to be a caduceus, and Mars very likely a spear and shield (early forms were just an arrow shape, maybe a spear but hard to tell what it was). Venus is unclear; a hand mirror is as good a guess as any, but we really don't know.
Also, Mars and Venus were not always iron and copper. In one early source, Mars was copper. Only gold, silver and lead for the Sun, Moon and Saturn are invariable in surviving mss. — kwami ( talk) 03:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
@
Kwamikagami: just a note re your recent edits that added ︎
after the pictogram: on Chrome, I see no difference with or without. It looks like the default font only has an emoji-like rendering. In both {{char|🚹︎}} [with variation selector] and {{char|🚹}} [without], I see a white figure on a square blue background. Perhaps it is different with Safari or Bing?
BTW, I also tried this syntax <span style="colour:red">🚺</span>
to try to change the background to red, woth no effect (and then decided it was trivia anyway and dropped the whole idea).
This is just an FYI to save you repeating the exercise unless you really want to. Otherwise no reply expected. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 18:35, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Rather than keep changing the article, let's see if we can agree an ultra-succinct wording for that column heading.
How about "Meaning assigned by Unicode Consortium"? (Is "meaning" the correct word in this context?) John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:39, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Unicode-givenedit assuming "Unicode" can also refer to the Unicode Consortium, but I mostly agree with your other points. I don't know which terminology is accurate ("associated wording", "meaning", or etc.), so I might check Unicode documents later. I'm also split on whether to simply re-add the "the assoc. wording here is from Unicode" footnote.
Associated Unicode Standard wording(what Kwamikagami recommended) or
Unicode Standard associated wordingas I think that including "standard" clarifies even more that the wording is from Unicode documents. LightNightLights ( talk) 07:05, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Associated Unicode Standard wordingtoo, so I declare a consensus! -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 10:04, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Under the "Public toilets" section, an image of a Swiss public toilet is labeled "Biological gender symbols on a public toilet in Switzerland". Typically gender is seen as a social concept, and sex is biological. This is a minute detail but I suggest the removal of the word "biological" from the image's label to avoid any unnecessary confusion.
Lumenfre (
talk) 05:36, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 18 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jenjmo ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Jenjmo ( talk) 17:42, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cewb23 ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Ktrachsel01 ( talk) 01:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Gender symbol article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 January 2019 and 15 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sashaver82.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 22:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Can anyone refer to a web resource that proves the meaning as a gender symbol of the saggitarius and the earth symbols? I translated the articel into german ( Gender-Symbol) but omitted these symbols for lack of any evidence. -- Mosmas 14:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
There is an even older symbol for gender and this symbol is commonly used in the social sciences. Triangle and Circle. Triangle stands for male and Circle stands for female. This is often seen in kinship charts (think anthropology). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.30.141 ( talk) 06:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Could anyone direct me to a font that can display the symbols used on this article? Only Mars, Venus and Mercury are displayed correctly for me. Geemer ( talk) 13:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
I seek a child symbol to go along with the female symbol and the male symbol. If such a symbol exists, this article may document it. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.28.185.40 ( talk) 20:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
why are the hermaphrodite and neuter symbols is in the LGBT section? i can understand the lesbian, gay and transgender symbols being there, but the hermaphrodite and neuter symbols are listed as biological symbols in places such as my funk & wagnalls standard desk dictionary. this seems to suggest that they are the official symbols, and apply to other organisms and plants, not specifically to the lgbt culture, as this article seems to suggest. also the neuter symbol does not display correctly on my screen. perhaps we'd be better off with pictures for all. (sorry, i have no idea why my addition keeps popping up in odd places) Fantiquitous ( talk) 14:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree, the use of LGBT culture as a heading here is incorrect and unrepresentative of the symbols entire "gender" meaning - many of these symbols have been adapted to LGBT culture rather than created by it. They're uses originating in scientific rather than "gender" culture(would be more correct than LGBT). I propose this page would be more useful and encyclopaedic if it was changed to a basic list of the symbols (Symbols/unicode/name etc, ie the facts) with any relevant cultural information/use expanded on below it. If no-one objects I will do this as soon as I get chance and I can probably prepare/add some citations to the use of male/female/Hermaphrodite/neuter/transgender symbols in the Correspondence of Charles Darwin. 131.111.184.99 ( talk) 12:33, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
anyone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.199.45 ( talk) 09:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
In all my gender studies, I have always seen the Mercury symbol used to represent hermaphrodites. This article is the first I have ever seen that says it is used for "virgin females." 71.91.58.31 ( talk) 00:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
This is a harmfully wrong representation of the mercury sign, labelling it a transgender sign, conflating transgender with intersex. The Mercury was used in Alchemy and in early biology and botany as a sign for Hermaphrodite. -- Blivet01 ( talk) 08:04, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Might include some alternative symbols, or symbols from non-Western cultures: AnonMoos ( talk) 18:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Context |
Egyptian |
East Asian |
Cuneiform |
Toilet signs | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Woman/ Female |
|
女 |
||||
Man/ Male |
|
男 |
P.S. Not sure that there's a single cuneiform sign which indicated male/man in all the situations where indicated female/woman, but a single vertical stroke was used as a marker before masculine names... AnonMoos ( talk) 22:11, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
(Please excuse my poor english) The two male and female symboles although giving a symbolic biological difference between male and female in their design (Forward arrow pointing up as a phallic symbol and female cross birth giving representation) also differentiate the male and female psychological differences: MALE: Future-oriented FEMALE: Grounded into the present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.249.57.28 ( talk) 10:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
What's the connection that Volvo (car/truck manufacturer) is listed in the "See also" section? 88.202.32.87 ( talk) 21:32, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
There appear to be numerous unreferenced statements in this article. I've added some citations for the scientific and historic usage. This reference could be of use, but I can't find a copy of it.
Lewis, Nolan, DC. "The Sexual Significance of Ancient Chemical Symbols." Psychoanalytic Review 14.2 (1927): 200-206.
I've only found one source that looks reliable for recent LGBT use for five of the symbols. Claims such as "It also means ‘other’ gender" etc. need to be sourced. -- mikeu talk 17:58, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Supposedly in pre-1850 rural schools in the United States, a sun symbol meant a boys' outhouse, while a crescent symbol meant a girls' outhouse. [1] -- AnonMoos ( talk) 08:35, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Aha! The Outhouse Museum in Colome, SD has a duplex outhouse with a 5-pt star in the door to the left and a crescent moon in the door to the right. [2] I wonder then if the crescent-and-star symbol indicated a unisex toilet? — kwami ( talk) 22:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Gender symbol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 10:34, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
In the article, the author does mention where the symbols originated (Mars and Venus symbols), but I think that relating the symbols to the masculine and feminine ideals society has on the symbols would also be important to the article. For example, talking more about the connection between Mars with hard, red metal like iron and Venus with the soft metal that can turn green, copper. I think that the significance between the origin of the sign and its namesake are connected through sociological ideas about what a male and a female are, tough and soft. Sashaver82 ( talk) 05:05, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
I deleted this section partly because it reads like someone's essay plan but mainly because it is based on a erroneous foundation that has persisted to this day despite being dismissed repeatedly over the past 200 years. These symbols do not refer to the 'shield and spear of Mars or Venus's looking glass', they are evolutions of the initial letters of the Greek names of the planets. For an explanation, see the New Scientist article by Dr. William Stearn. Consequently, the citations supporting the material I deleted fail the wp:reliable source test. There is certainly a need for some material on the symbolism but this is not it. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 15:54, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
What is the scientific name for these? I assume there are wikipages to them. Shouldn't this article hold links to them? e.g. [3] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2020/02/exploring-britains-landscapes-of-love-and-lust and Yoni. Thy, SvenAERTS ( talk) 14:57, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Part of the reason why this article was not formerly fully sourced to Unicode was that Unicode defined U26A4 as "bisexuality", while in the real world this is used much more often to mean "heterosexuality". But from what's linked to from the article now, it seems that Unicode has fixed this... AnonMoos ( talk) 18:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I think I found the problem. In botany, perfect flowers, symbolized ⚥, are more often called 'bisexual' these days than 'hermaphroditic'. — kwami ( talk) 03:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
We need to add the cis and trans gender signs to this article -- 15:28, 8 March 2021 71.195.245.66
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect ⚧️. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 March 10#⚧️ until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. – MJL ‐Talk‐ ☖ 18:24, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
...don't belong here and I deleted the para. It was a WP:FORK of planetary symbol and related articles. Also, the Stearns ref we had was dated and now known to be wrong: only Jupiter and Saturn are known to derive from abbreviations (zeta + stroke and kappa-rho + stroke, respectively). Mercury is universally thought to be a caduceus, and Mars very likely a spear and shield (early forms were just an arrow shape, maybe a spear but hard to tell what it was). Venus is unclear; a hand mirror is as good a guess as any, but we really don't know.
Also, Mars and Venus were not always iron and copper. In one early source, Mars was copper. Only gold, silver and lead for the Sun, Moon and Saturn are invariable in surviving mss. — kwami ( talk) 03:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
@
Kwamikagami: just a note re your recent edits that added ︎
after the pictogram: on Chrome, I see no difference with or without. It looks like the default font only has an emoji-like rendering. In both {{char|🚹︎}} [with variation selector] and {{char|🚹}} [without], I see a white figure on a square blue background. Perhaps it is different with Safari or Bing?
BTW, I also tried this syntax <span style="colour:red">🚺</span>
to try to change the background to red, woth no effect (and then decided it was trivia anyway and dropped the whole idea).
This is just an FYI to save you repeating the exercise unless you really want to. Otherwise no reply expected. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 18:35, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
Rather than keep changing the article, let's see if we can agree an ultra-succinct wording for that column heading.
How about "Meaning assigned by Unicode Consortium"? (Is "meaning" the correct word in this context?) John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 19:39, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Unicode-givenedit assuming "Unicode" can also refer to the Unicode Consortium, but I mostly agree with your other points. I don't know which terminology is accurate ("associated wording", "meaning", or etc.), so I might check Unicode documents later. I'm also split on whether to simply re-add the "the assoc. wording here is from Unicode" footnote.
Associated Unicode Standard wording(what Kwamikagami recommended) or
Unicode Standard associated wordingas I think that including "standard" clarifies even more that the wording is from Unicode documents. LightNightLights ( talk) 07:05, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Associated Unicode Standard wordingtoo, so I declare a consensus! -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 10:04, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Under the "Public toilets" section, an image of a Swiss public toilet is labeled "Biological gender symbols on a public toilet in Switzerland". Typically gender is seen as a social concept, and sex is biological. This is a minute detail but I suggest the removal of the word "biological" from the image's label to avoid any unnecessary confusion.
Lumenfre (
talk) 05:36, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 18 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jenjmo ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Jenjmo ( talk) 17:42, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cewb23 ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Ktrachsel01 ( talk) 01:07, 18 December 2023 (UTC)