What Are Luigi's Pronouns? Nintendo Adds Transgender Character in “Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door” Remake

Nintendo has officially confirmed the inclusion of a transgender character named Vivian in the highly anticipated remake of the classic role-playing game Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the Nintendo Switch.

The New York Post reports that the iconic video game Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, originally released in 2004 for the Nintendo GameCube, has been given a fresh update, and with it comes a significant change to one of its characters. Vivian, who initially appears as a villain alongside his sisters Marilyn and Bedlam, is now confirmed to be a transgender character.

In the game, the character reveals their identity, stating, “Truth is, it took me a while to realize I was their sister… not their brother. Now their usual bullying feels heavier.”

Interestingly, the original Japanese version of the game, released in 2004, already featured Vivian as a transgender character. However, in the English translation of the same year, this aspect of their identity was altered, with the bullying attributed to them being “ugly” rather than the character’s gender identity.

This move is not entirely unprecedented, as the company has previously hinted at gender diversity in their characters. In the manual of Super Mario Bros. 2, the character Birdo, a pink dinosaur with a large red hair bow, was once referred to as a male who “thinks he is a girl.” Although this mention was later removed from the game, it suggests that Nintendo has been considering gender identity in their character design for some time.

The 2024 remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door takes a more celebratory approach to Vivian’s transgender identity, toning down the teasing from the original game. Vivian is not the first transgender character to appear in recent video games. In 2023, the highly popular Harry Potter video game, Hogwarts Legacy, introduced Sirona Ryan, the first openly transgender character in the Harry Potter universe.