As trans people looking for representation, for a long time we’ve been forced to feed off scraps made of headcanons and hate. While there are more pressing issues facing the trans community today, it’s only recently that we’ve been able to see ourselves authentically on the screen, not as crazed killers or figures of fun. There’s still work to be done here -trans men have a minor foothold in gamingbut are woefully underrepresented everywhere else, while trans women are oversaturated in headlines buthave a lack of polygonal presence. Non-binary characters tend to be literal robots. ThisPridemonth, as I look back on the legacy of trans representation in gaming, I can’t ignore the value of Birdo.
The reason I think Birdo is so crucial is because she represents all of the bitter ingredients that have gone into the noxious cocktail of representation over the years. Birdo’s origins aren’t all that well known by most. Narrative has never been all that crucial toMario- hence whyThe Super Mario Bros. Moviewas just a bunch of stuff that happened - and so we think of the characters in frozen states. Mario hasn’t changed much over the years. Peach has gained a little more agency recently, but she hasn’t struggled for it or earned it, she has just evolved with the times. The Mario characters are the same archetypes they always were, and that works for the Mario formula. But Birdo is a rare exception.
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Birdo first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2, where she was referred to in the instruction manual (remember those!) as a boy who wants to be a girl - a transgender rose by any other name. She was also a villain, so that’s the first trope ticked off. Transgender people have always been pushed to the side and reviled, so in the same way fiction exploits our fears of deformities or foreign accents, making a character transgender was a way to indicate to the audience that they are to be hated.
This same game mentioned that Birdo preferred to be called Birdetta, which seems like a more female sounding name. It might not seem that way now, given we all associate Birdo with being female, but the ‘o’ suffix is more masculine, and the ‘a’ more feminine: in Latin languages Paulo, Julio, Roberto, and Antonio are boys names, while Paula, Julia, Roberta, and Antonia are girls names. She also had a deep voice in Japanese commercials, emphasising her masculinity. This is another core aspect of early trans rep - mockery. It’s supposed to be seen as foolish and humiliating that this man wears a bow and wants a woman’s name. It’s a stone toss away from drawing her with broad shoulders, stubble, and cartoonishly hairy arms.
With mockery often comes oversexualisation, and that’s here too. The Japan-only Wii game Captain Rainbow was something of a fever dream, seeing a superhero wander through various B-list Nintendo cameos like an off-brand Space Jam. One of these cameos is from Birdo who is currently imprisoned for going into the women’s bathroom, which is incredibly prophetic if nothing else. We then need to free Birdo from her punishment by proving she really is female, which we do by finding her vibrator in her room. This, somehow, proves Birdo is allowed in the female restroom and so she is freed. This was the last time Birdo’s gender history was referenced by any official material.
These might seem like a list of lowlights, but it’s important during Pride month to remember where we come from, and how much distance we have earned since then. I mentioned that headcanon is as much a part of seeing ourselves on screen as hate, and that’s where we presently find ourselves. Birdo is now referred to exclusively as female, with no reference to her gender identity coming up any more than it does for Mario, Luigi, Peach, or Daisy. Many, Nintendo included, are keen to ignore her trans status altogether. Since Mario Tennis in 2000, she has been referred to as female by Nintendo (with Captain Rainbow and a few foreign translations the only holdouts), the remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 removed gendered references and uses a female voice actor, and her page on the official Nintendo website does not list her amongst Mario characters nor even mention her on the page for Super Mario Bros. 2.
Nintendo seems to be ashamed of Birdo’s past- not of its depictions of mockery and vilification, but of Birdo’s transness at all. If we do accept that Birdo is trans (and as a man who wanted to be a woman then became a woman, why wouldn’t we?), then that would make her the first trans character to appear in a video game. It’s a major milestone, and Nintendo clearly does not want to be saddled with it. It likely regrets that Super Mario Bros. 2 didn’t launch a few months later, when Yasmin from the all-but-forgotten Circuit’s Edge would have beaten her to the title. However, even if Nintendo is disinterested in this landmark piece of representation, the community can and will always celebrate it, and see in Birdo’s journey a metaphor for the community’s own representation on screen. Birdo is one of our own, whether Nintendo likes it or not.
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