The Chinese gay community, however, began appropriating “comrade” as a common greeting in the 1980s, likely taken from the Chinese name of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival-its name in Chinese is the Comrade Film Festival-leading the term to spread to the gay communities in Taiwan and mainland China. After years of pressure from community organizers, Apple has finally released a transgender Pride flag in its newest emoji pack. This emoji would actually be composed of two characters, the white flag plus the code for another pre-existing emoji. The demand for a Christian flag following the inclusion of one to celebrate gay pride is similar to the recent hashtag. The term comrade, or tongzhi, became a common form of address within the party during the Communist Revolution but fell into disuse after China’s market economy opened up in 1979. The emoji depicts a gay-pride rainbow flag with a crossed-out circle over the top. The rainbow flag emoji was added to Facebook in June to celebrate. (Facebook had just started rolling out the rainbow flag emoji this month for the occasion.) The former makes sense given the tension leading up to the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover on July 1, but the latter is a cheeky response to Xi’s comments-specifically the term “comrade”-which happen to coincide with Pride month. The rainbow flag is usually a flag that represents gay pride, and sometimes it. Angry conservative Christians have been demanding a Christian cross emoji because Facebook chose to honor LGBT Pride month by adding a rainbow flag emoji to the thumbs up, heart sign. When Chinese president Xi Jinping repeated this to soldiers during a Chinese military parade in Hong Kong on June 30, a Facebook livestream of the event erupted with a flood of rage (?) and rainbow flag (?️?) emoji. A rainbow flag with six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
“Hello comrades! You’ve worked hard, comrades!”