Nintendo, the iconic video game company known for Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, has announced that the upcoming remake of their 2004 game, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, will explicitly revive a character’s transgender identity. The character Vivian will discuss her gender identity in dialogue with Mario, revealing that her siblings bullied her after she realized she was a girl, highlighting the villains' transphobia. Vivian starts as a member of the Shadow Sirens, a trio of villains, including her sisters, Marilyn and Beldam. However, she eventually becomes a hero and allies with Mario. In the original Japanese version, Vivian was insulted with male pronouns, a detail omitted in the English localization, where she was mocked for her appearance instead. This isn’t Nintendo’s first foray into transgender representation. In the Japanese manual for Super Mario Bros. 2, released in the late 1980s, the character Birdo was described as transgender, but sadly it was treated as a joke. The company faced backlash in 2014 for omitting same-sex marriage in Tomodachi Life, prompting an apology. Since then, Nintendo has become more supportive of LGBTQ+ rights, recognizing marriage equality in 2022 and updating company policies to protect sexual orientation and gender identity. #Queer Up Gaming