I Don’t Know.

I love lobster in any form… boiled, baked, stuffed in rolls, Newberg, mac & cheese with lobster, and the list goes on and on but I don’t like the idea of lobster as an emoji for us.

Transgender advocates adopt lobster emoji
In the meantime, they are pushing an online petition for their own pink-and-blue emoji.
Press Herald
By Penelope Overton
August 13, 2018

British transgender activists frustrated by a lack of online representation are claiming Maine’s beloved new lobster emoji as their own.

The group, Lobsters Against Transphobia, launched an online petition last month to push Unicode, a nonprofit consortium that signs off on new pictograms, for a pink-and-blue flag emoji. Until they get their own flag, the group urged supporters to turn to the lobster, one of 157 new emojis that Unicode approved this year, as a substitute.

Lobsters can display both male and female characteristics.

“Emojis are a way for the world to connect and trans people shouldn’t be left out of the conversation,” the group said. “Unicode granted the lobster emoji proposal, which argued that people suffered ‘frustration and confusion’ at having to use a shrimp or crab emoji instead of a lobster. Imagine if that was your gender. Surely we deserve the same rights you have afforded crustaceans?”

Trans advocates are jumping on board the online campaign by adding the lobster emoji to their Twitter handles, dressing up as lobsters during Trans Pride parades and decorating colorfully polished fingernails with lobster stickers. On Twitter, they have gathered under the single banner of #ClawsOutForTrans.

Nope! I am not jumping onboard.

There are so many other symbols that we can use for an emoji and two come to mind,

• The trans flag
• The trans symbol (which is already in the public domain)

We need an emoji that we can recognize at first glance.

“I would be surprised if this caught on here,” said executive director Matt Moonen. “It’s basically already a symbol of our entire state.”

The Mainer who kicked off the online lobster emoji campaign, Luke Holden of Luke’s Lobster, said he doesn’t mind sharing.

“Lobster is for everyone,” the Cape Elizabeth native said by email. “So until Unicode does right by the trans community, we fully support using the lobster emoji to advocate for their right to be represented.”

Well I do mind sharing, because what you are really doing is stealing it from Mainers.

Let’s have our own emoji and not one that is “borrowed.”