User:Cewb23/Gender symbol

Public toilets
The modern gender symbols used for public toilets, 🚹&#xFE0E; for male and 🚺&#xFE0E; and female, are pictograms created for the British Rail system in the mid-1960s. Before that, local usage had been more variable. For example, schoolhouse outhouses in the 19th-century United States had ventilation holes in their doors that were shaped like a starburst Sun ✴ or like a crescent Moon ☾, respectively, to indicate whether the toilet was for use by boys or girls. The British Rail pictograms – often color-coded blue and red – are now the norm for marking public toilets in much of the world, with the female symbol distinguished by a triangular skirt or dress, and in early years (and sometimes still) the male symbol stylized like a tuxedo.

These symbols are abstracted to varying degrees in different countries – for example, the circle-and-triangle variants (female) and  (male) commonly found on portable toilets, to the extreme of a triangle △ (representing a skirt or dress) for female and an inverted triangle ▽ (representing a broad-shouldered tuxedo) for male in Lithuania.

In elementary schools, the pictograms may be of children rather than of adults, with the girl distinguished by her hair. In themed locations, such as bars and tourist attractions, a thematic image or figurine of a man and woman or boy and girl may be used.

In Poland, an inverted triangle ▽ is used for male while a circle ○ is used for female.

In mainland China, silhouettes of heads in profile may be used as gender pictograms, generally alongside the Chinese characters for male (男) and female (女).

Some contemporary designs for restroom signage in public spaces are shifting away from symbols that demonstrate gender as binary as a way to be more inclusive.