The Women Holding Hands: Medium-dark Skin Tone emoji (👭🏾) shows two women holding hands, both with a medium-dark skin tone. It stands for female friendship, sisterhood, support, and closeness, and it is also widely used to represent romantic love between women, from sapphic couples to queer pride celebrations.
What Does the Women Holding Hands: Medium-dark Skin Tone Emoji Mean?
This emoji means two women connected by friendship, love, or solidarity, shown with a medium-dark skin tone applied to both figures.
At its core, 👭🏾 depicts two women standing side by side with their hands joined. That simple image carries a lot of meaning, and the reader usually decides which one applies based on the surrounding words and the relationship between the people involved.
Friendship and sisterhood
Many people use it to celebrate a best friend, a sister, a cousin, or a group of women who show up for each other. It works as a visual shorthand for "we are in this together."
Romantic partnership
The emoji is also commonly used by and for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women to represent a couple. In pride posts, anniversary captions, and relationship announcements, it often signals love between two women.
Representation
The medium-dark skin tone lets people see themselves and the people they love in the emoji. Choosing this tone is a way of making a message feel personal rather than generic.
How Do You Use the Women Holding Hands: Medium-dark Skin Tone Emoji?
You use it to pair with a message about two women who share a bond, whether platonic or romantic, and to reflect the skin tone of the people you are talking about.
Because the emoji has no fixed emotional register, context does the heavy lifting. A caption about a girls' trip reads as friendship. A caption about a wedding or an anniversary reads as romance. A caption about community work reads as solidarity.
Here are a few realistic examples:
- Ten years of friendship and she still answers every call 👭🏾
- Happy anniversary to my favorite person. Two years and counting 👭🏾❤️
- Celebrating the women who held this team together this year 👭🏾
Notice that each example names the relationship in words. The emoji adds warmth and identity, while the text removes any ambiguity about whether you mean friends, family, or partners.
What Does 👭🏾 Mean in Texting and on Social Media?
In texting and on social media, 👭🏾 usually signals closeness between two women, and it is most often seen on friendship posts, couple photos, and pride content.
In direct messages
Friends send it to say "love you, thanks for being there," or to tag along with a plan such as a weekend trip or a shared inside joke. Between partners, it works as a quiet, affectionate sign-off.
In captions and comments
Under a photo of two women together, a comment with 👭🏾 reads as supportive and celebratory. It is a gentle way to say "you two are great" without writing a full sentence.
In bios and profiles
Some people place it in a bio to show who they love, who their community is, or to quietly signal being part of the LGBTQ community. Because it is a skin tone variant, it can also be a subtle statement of identity.
How Does the Women Holding Hands: Medium-dark Skin Tone Emoji Look on Different Platforms?
The emoji appears on all major platforms that support Emoji 12.0, but each vendor draws the figures, clothing, and hair in its own style.
Based on the supported platform data, you can expect to see it on these systems:
- Apple: iOS 13.2+ and macOS 10.15.1+
- Google: Android 10.0+
- Microsoft: Windows 10 1903+
- Samsung: One UI 2.0+
- WhatsApp: version 2.20+
- Twitter: Twemoji 12.1+
On older devices or software that predates these versions, the emoji may not render properly. You might see two separate characters instead: the plain 👭 emoji followed by a brown square or skin tone swatch. If a friend reports seeing something odd, an outdated operating system is the most likely reason.
Which Emojis Pair Well With 👭🏾?
The best pairings add emotion or context that the emoji alone does not carry, such as hearts for affection, sparkles for celebration, or a pride flag for identity.
Some combinations people commonly reach for:
- 👭🏾❤️ for love, either romantic or sisterly
- 👭🏾🌈 for pride and LGBTQ celebration
- 👭🏾✨ for a joyful milestone or a girls' day out
- 👭🏾🙏🏾 for gratitude toward a friend
If you want to switch between related emojis, you can browse the default-tone Women Holding Hands emoji or explore more from the People & Body category. For lighter reactions in the same conversation, Thumbs Up or Eyes can sit nicely alongside it.
When Should You Avoid the Women Holding Hands: Medium-dark Skin Tone Emoji?
Avoid it when it could misrepresent a relationship, or when you are choosing a skin tone that does not reflect the people you mean.
Do not assume the relationship
Because the emoji can mean friendship or romance, using it about two people without knowing how they describe themselves can cause awkwardness. If you are not sure, stick to a friendly caption and let them define the relationship.
Be thoughtful about skin tone
This particular version has both figures in the same medium-dark skin tone. If you are talking about two women with different tones, the standard version may fit better. Using a tone that does not match anyone in the conversation can feel like a missed detail, so pick deliberately.
Consider your audience
In very formal or strictly professional messages, an emoji about relationships can feel out of place. In casual team chats celebrating collaboration, though, it usually lands warmly.
How Is This Emoji Different From Similar Ones?
It differs from other hand-holding emojis in who it depicts: two women, with a specific medium-dark skin tone, rather than a mixed or default pairing.
The emoji family includes several related characters, such as a man and woman holding hands and two men holding hands, plus a range of skin tone combinations. Choosing the women version is a deliberate way of naming who is in the picture.
It is also different from reaction emojis such as Woman Shrugging or Woman Facepalming. Those show a single person reacting. This one shows two people joined together, so it is about connection rather than attitude.
What Are the Technical Details of This Emoji?
This emoji is built from two Unicode codepoints, U+1F46D and U+1F3FE, and belongs to the People & Body category.
The base character U+1F46D is the Women Holding Hands emoji, and U+1F3FE is the medium-dark skin tone modifier. When a device sees them together, it combines them into one image. The emoji was introduced in Unicode 12.0 and Emoji 12.0, which is why support begins with fairly recent operating system versions.
The shortcode is :women_holding_hands_medium_dark_skin_tone:, which you can type in some apps and chat tools to summon the emoji. If you want to turn a sentence into emoji and experiment with other options, the Emoji Translator is a handy tool, and you can see what others are using on the trending emojis page.
How Do You Copy and Paste the Women Holding Hands: Medium-dark Skin Tone Emoji?
You can copy this emoji with one click on this page and paste it into any app that supports Emoji 12.0.
Click the emoji 👭🏾 at the top of the page, and it is copied to your clipboard right away. Then paste it into your text message, social post, email, document, or chat window using your usual paste shortcut or long-press menu.
If it looks like two separate symbols after pasting, your device or app may be too old to combine them. Updating your operating system or the app usually solves the problem, and the emoji will then appear as one image of two women holding hands.
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