Couple With Heart: Woman, Woman Emoji
U+1F469 U+200D U+2764 U+FE0F U+200D U+1F469:couple_with_heart_woman_woman:Skin tonesAbout Couple With Heart: Woman, Woman 👩❤️👩
Couple With Heart: Woman, Woman () is part of the People & Body group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E2.0. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. On Discord it's . Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode. Pick a skin tone above to customize it.
Often associated with anniversary, babe, bae, and 11 more keywords.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
Two women standing close together with a red heart between them. 👩❤️👩 is the most direct emoji representation of a lesbian or sapphic relationship. Where 👭 could be read as friendship, the heart removes all ambiguity: this is romantic love between two women.
Added to Emoji 2.0 in 2015, the emoji arrived the same year as the US Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. That timing wasn't coordinated, but it meant the emoji entered mainstream use alongside a massive cultural moment for LGBTQ+ rights. Apple had already included same-sex couple emojis in iOS 6 back in 2012, three years before the court ruling.
Today, 👩❤️👩 is the go-to for WLW (women-loving-women) identity expression on social media, relationship announcements, anniversary posts, and Pride content. It's also used by allies to show support and by activists pushing for broader LGBTQ+ representation in digital spaces, including the ongoing campaign for an official lesbian pride flag emoji.
👩❤️👩 lives primarily in three spaces. First, relationship posts: lesbian and bisexual women use it in bios, couple photos, anniversary captions, and engagement announcements. It's the equivalent of 👩❤️👨 for WLW couples.
Second, Pride and advocacy. Usage spikes every June during Pride Month, appearing alongside 🏳️🌈 in posts, stories, and profile updates. It shows up in threads about representation, marriage equality, and anti-discrimination efforts. During Indonesia's 2016 crackdown on same-sex emojis, LINE was forced to remove its gay emoji stickers, and 👩❤️👩 became part of the broader conversation about digital censorship.
Third, sapphic internet culture. TikTok and Instagram have thriving WLW communities where 👩❤️👩 appears in meme formats, aesthetic bios, and caption templates. The emoji combo 👩❤️👩🏳️🌈✨ is practically a genre. Sapphic accounts pair it with cottagecore aesthetics, sword lesbian energy, and "useless lesbian" humor with equal enthusiasm.
👩❤️👩 represents romantic love between two women. It's the primary emoji for lesbian and WLW (women-loving-women) relationships. The heart between the two figures makes the romantic meaning unambiguous, distinguishing it from 👭 (which can mean friendship).
No. While it's most commonly used to represent lesbian relationships, bisexual, pansexual, and queer women in same-sex relationships use it too. The broader term is WLW (women-loving-women). Allies also use it to show support during Pride and advocacy contexts.
What it means from...
If a woman sends 👩❤️👩 to another woman she's interested in, that's about as clear as it gets without spelling it out. The heart between the two women leaves no room for a "just friends" interpretation. It's either a declaration or a test of the waters. Either way, the message is: I see us as a romantic possibility.
Between partners, 👩❤️👩 is "us" in emoji form. It shows up in anniversary posts, bio sections, quick texts ("miss you 👩❤️👩"), and relationship milestones. Some couples use it as a reaction emoji in group chats when someone mentions them as a pair.
Between friends, context matters. A straight friend might send it to a lesbian friend during Pride as a show of support. Between two women who are actually just friends, it's uncommon unless one is playfully referencing the "everyone thinks we're dating" trope. The heart makes the romantic reading the default.
In family contexts, 👩❤️👩 represents a same-sex female couple within a family unit. It shows up in posts about two moms, family announcements, and Pride family content. Parents might use it to show acceptance of a daughter's relationship.
In professional contexts, this only appears during Pride Month celebrations or in explicitly LGBTQ+-friendly workplace channels. Outside of those contexts, it's too personal for work communication.
From someone you don't know, 👩❤️👩 in a bio or profile is an identity marker: they're in a WLW relationship or they're sapphic. On dating apps, it's a direct signal. In comments on LGBTQ+ content, it's solidarity.
Flirty or friendly?
👩❤️👩 is romantic by default. The heart between two women makes the love reading inescapable. Unlike 👭 (which can be friendship), there's no platonic interpretation of a heart between two people. If someone sends it to you, they either mean romantic love or they're explicitly showing Pride support in a clearly marked context.
- •Romantic: sent directly to someone you're interested in or dating
- •Identity: in bios and profiles to signal WLW orientation
- •Advocacy: paired with 🏳️🌈 in Pride or rights-related contexts
- •Never purely friendly: the heart rules out platonic readings
Emoji combos
Origin story
Same-sex couple emojis have a surprisingly early digital history. Apple included 👬 and 👭 in iOS 6 (September 2012), making it the first major platform to add same-sex couple icons. TechCrunch, ABC News, and Gizmodo covered the announcement as a milestone.
👩❤️👩 specifically was added to Emoji 2.0 in 2015, the same year as the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. It's a ZWJ sequence: 👩 Woman + ZWJ + ❤️ Red Heart + ZWJ + 👩 Woman, which means it's assembled from existing components rather than having its own codepoint.
In 2019, Tinder's #RepresentLove campaign drove the expansion of couple emojis to include interracial skin tone combinations. Unicode 12.0 delivered 71 new couple variants, including skin-toned versions of 👩❤️👩. The campaign, co-led by Reddit's Alexis Ohanian and Emojination's Jennifer 8. Lee, gathered over 52,000 signatures.
Not every country welcomed these emojis. In 2016, Indonesia ordered LINE, WhatsApp, and Facebook to remove same-sex emojis, calling them "capable of causing civil unrest" and a threat to "Muslim sensibilities." LINE complied. Meanwhile in Russia, an investigation into "gay emojis" targeted same-sex couple icons under the country's 2013 anti-gay propaganda law.
Design history
- 2012Apple includes first same-sex couple emojis in iOS 6 (hands-holding variants)↗
- 2015👩❤️👩 added to Emoji 2.0 — same year as Obergefell v. Hodges ruling↗
- 2016Indonesia orders messaging apps to remove same-sex emojis; LINE complies↗
- 2018Tinder launches #RepresentLove campaign for interracial couple emoji variants
- 2019Unicode 12.0 adds skin tone combinations for all couple emojis, including 👩❤️👩
Around the world
The reception of 👩❤️👩 varies wildly by country.
In the US and Western Europe, it's a normalized symbol of love and Pride. It appears in corporate marketing during Pride Month, in celebrity Instagram posts, and in everyday couple communication without controversy.
In Indonesia, the government ordered messaging apps to remove same-sex emojis in 2016. An official claimed they could "cause civil unrest" and "hurt Muslim sensibilities." LINE complied and removed its gay sticker packs. WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter were also contacted. The communications minister said failure to comply could lead to the apps being banned entirely.
In Russia, same-sex emojis were investigated under the 2013 anti-gay propaganda law. Senator Mikhail Marchenko argued they promoted "non-traditional sexual relations among minors." The investigation didn't result in a ban (you can't remove emojis from iOS/Android at the OS level), but it made the emojis symbols of resistance.
In parts of Africa and the Middle East, same-sex relationships are illegal in many countries, making 👩❤️👩 not just culturally sensitive but potentially dangerous to use publicly. LGBTQ+ individuals in these regions sometimes use coded emoji combinations instead.
In South Korea and Japan, the emoji is used in both romantic and fandom contexts. Female K-pop idol ships and yuri anime fans use it alongside 👭 and 💕.
In 2016, Indonesia's communications ministry ordered LINE, WhatsApp, and Facebook to remove same-sex emojis, claiming they could 'cause civil unrest' and 'hurt Muslim sensibilities.' LINE complied and removed its gay sticker packs. The emojis couldn't be removed from iOS/Android at the operating system level.
Couple with heart emoji variants (relative usage)
Often confused with
👭 (Women Holding Hands) can represent either friendship or romance. 👩❤️👩 (Couple with Heart) is explicitly romantic — the heart makes that clear. Use 👭 for female friendship, 👩❤️👩 for WLW love.
👭 (Women Holding Hands) can represent either friendship or romance. 👩❤️👩 (Couple with Heart) is explicitly romantic — the heart makes that clear. Use 👭 for female friendship, 👩❤️👩 for WLW love.
👩❤️💋👩 (Kiss: Woman, Woman) is the more intense version. 👩❤️👩 shows love (heart between figures), while 👩❤️💋👩 shows a kiss. The heart version is the everyday relationship emoji; the kiss version is for moments of affection.
👩❤️💋👩 (Kiss: Woman, Woman) is the more intense version. 👩❤️👩 shows love (heart between figures), while 👩❤️💋👩 shows a kiss. The heart version is the everyday relationship emoji; the kiss version is for moments of affection.
💑 (Couple with Heart) is the gender-neutral version. It doesn't specify gender. 👩❤️👩 explicitly shows two women. If you want to be inclusive or gender-neutral, use 💑. If you want to specifically represent WLW love, use 👩❤️👩.
💑 (Couple with Heart) is the gender-neutral version. It doesn't specify gender. 👩❤️👩 explicitly shows two women. If you want to be inclusive or gender-neutral, use 💑. If you want to specifically represent WLW love, use 👩❤️👩.
The heart. 👭 (Women Holding Hands) can mean either friendship or romance. 👩❤️👩 (Couple with Heart) is explicitly romantic. If you want to show a close female friendship without romantic implication, use 👭. For WLW love, use 👩❤️👩.
Do's and don'ts
- ✗Don't use it to fetishize lesbian relationships — it's a love emoji, not entertainment
- ✗Avoid using it to out someone or imply someone's orientation without consent
- ✗Don't use it mockingly or as a punchline
- ✗Skip it in professional contexts unless it's an explicitly Pride-related conversation
On dating apps, 👩❤️👩 in a bio is a clear identity signal: the person is interested in women. It's one of the most direct ways to communicate WLW orientation without having to spell it out in text. It's also used in bios to indicate an existing relationship.
Caption ideas
Aesthetic sets
Fun facts
- •👩❤️👩 arrived in Emoji 2.0 the same year (2015) as the US Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Uncoordinated, but perfectly timed.
- •Indonesia's communications ministry ordered LINE, WhatsApp, and Facebook to remove same-sex emojis in 2016. LINE complied. But the emojis couldn't be removed from iOS/Android at the operating system level, so 👩❤️👩 persisted on every iPhone and Android regardless.
- •When Instagram launched emoji hashtags, the two-women-holding-hands emoji was tagged in 13,000 photos on the first day, over twice the prayer hands emoji.
- •There's still no official lesbian pride flag emoji in Unicode, despite 🏳️🌈 (2016) and 🏳️⚧️ (2020) existing. The bisexual, asexual, and lesbian flag proposals have all been rejected or are pending. WLW users build the flag with 🧡🤍💗 heart sequences instead.
- •The ZWJ sequence for a skin-toned 👩❤️👩 contains at least 7 codepoints: Woman + Skin Tone + ZWJ + Heart + Variation Selector + ZWJ + Woman + Skin Tone. It's one of the longest emoji sequences in the standard.
Common misinterpretations
- •Some people assume 👩❤️👩 is only for lesbians, but bisexual, pansexual, and queer women in same-sex relationships use it too. WLW (women-loving-women) is the more accurate umbrella.
- •In some contexts, people mistake 👩❤️👩 for a close friendship emoji like 👭. The heart between the figures makes the romantic meaning unambiguous. If you want to show female friendship without the romance, use 👭 instead.
In pop culture
- •Orange Is the New Black (Netflix, 2013-2019) was called a "queer revolution on TV" by TIME magazine. The show normalized WLW relationships in mainstream media and drove sapphic emoji usage in fandom spaces.
- •Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi's relationship (married since 2008) is one of the most visible celebrity lesbian couples. Their public visibility helped normalize the kind of representation 👩❤️👩 provides.
- •The #RepresentLove campaign by Tinder (2018) directly led to interracial skin tone options for all couple emojis including 👩❤️👩. CNN, Hypebeast, and LGBTQ Nation covered the story.
- •The "sword lesbian" aesthetic meme on Tumblr and TikTok pairs 👩❤️👩 with ⚔️, referencing WLW warrior characters in fantasy fiction. It became a whole identity category in sapphic internet culture.
Trivia
For developers
- •👩❤️👩 is a ZWJ sequence: (Woman) + (ZWJ) + (Heavy Black Heart) + (VS-16) + (ZWJ) + (Woman). Six codepoints total.
- •Skin-toned versions add more codepoints: each woman gets a Fitzpatrick modifier. A skin-toned variant can be 8+ codepoints long.
- •Shortcode: on Slack/GitHub. Some systems use .
- •Not all platforms render this correctly. Older Android versions may show the component emojis separately (👩❤️👩) instead of the composed version. Test rendering on target devices.
Yes. Since Unicode 12.0 (2019), each woman in the emoji can have a different skin tone, allowing interracial couples to be represented. This was driven by Tinder's #RepresentLove petition. The technical implementation uses an extended ZWJ sequence with Fitzpatrick modifiers.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What does 👩❤️👩 represent to you?
Select all that apply
- Couple with Heart: Woman, Woman (emojipedia.org)
- Couple with Heart WW Emoji (emojis.wiki)
- iOS 6 Includes Same-Sex Emoji — TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
- Indonesia Gay Emojis Civil Unrest — Foreign Policy (foreignpolicy.com)
- Indonesia Bans Gay Emojis — Al Arabiya (english.alarabiya.net)
- Russia Could Ban Gay Emojis — Newsweek (newsweek.com)
- Tinder Interracial Emoji Campaign — CNN (money.cnn.com)
- Emoji Update Particularly Queer — LGBTQ Nation (lgbtqnation.com)
- LGBT Emojis Promote Marriage Equality — Bustle (bustle.com)
- Lesbian Flag Emoji Petition — Change.org (change.org)
- OITNB Queer Revolution — TIME (time.com)
- Apple iOS 6 Gay Icons — ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
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