The Super Mario franchise is known for enjoyable games, and its wide cast of colorful characters. From main characters like Luigi, to the one-time-only guest stars that are Mario's Paper Mario partners, every character in Nintendo's most well-known series has plenty of fans. Even Rosalina, the most recent addition to the supporting Mario cast, gets a fair deal of love. Of course, this is also true of Yoshi's female counterpart, Birdo, who has a rather interesting history behind her.
Birdo, who canonically prefers the names "Birdetta" or "Birdie," is transgender, and has openly been portrayed as such since her appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2. It was stated in the manual that was packaged in the original game, and that hasn't changed in appearances since whatsoever. However, even though Nintendo has kept Birdetta as a trans woman all these years, there's still a fair bit the company needs to do with regard to respecting her character as such.
The Backstory Behind Birdetta
In Super Mario Bros. 2's manual, Birdie is described simply as "he thinks he is a girl, and he spits eggs from his mouth. He’d rather be called 'Birdetta.'" Right away, this text is disrespectful to Birdetta by using the wrong pronouns despite the text implying that she's trans. It also sets the precedent that calling her "Birdo" is not something she wants people to do to her either, but it's also worth noting that this manual dates back roughly 30 years ago.
There's plenty of evidence saying that the way the localization was handled back in 1988 is not what would happen today. Birdie would most likely be less openly trans instead, considering her Japanese name is "Cathrine," with the name requested being a shortened nickname of "Cathie" instead.
What's even more important to note is only one other game beyond Super Mario Bros. 2 dares to refer to Birdetta as anything other than just "Birdo." It also isn't the only game to be disrespectful towards Birdetta on purpose, as Mario Kart Double Dash does something rather similar. Double Dash continues the disrespect towards Birdetta's gender in the Japanese version of the game, as her description there can be translated as "[Cathrine] appears to be Yoshi's girlfriend, but is actually his boyfriend!?" Not only does this refer to Birdetta with the wrong pronouns on purpose once more, but also reveals her identity in a way that's meant to be seen as weird and for laughs.
How More Recent Nintendo Games Have Included Birdie
While Birdie's gender may seem like an obscure fact to newer or more casual Mario fans, her gender is a talking point in several games for many different reasons. Birdie's trans nature still plays a role with the character to this day, with many more recent entries being much more polite with regard to her identity. Titles like Mario Super Sluggers feature things such as Peach's Heart Swing ability that stuns male characters and characters with unknown genders, but Birdetta is unaffected. Interestingly, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which was released the same year as Mario Kart Double Dash, also gives Birdetta a more recent preferred name in the form of "Birdie."
There are more things that express Birdetta's gender identity more clearly, such as Paper Mario: Sticker Star, which has Birdie's song begin with "heart of a woman, heart of a man, both can know of love's grace." There is also the Japan-only game Captain Rainbow for the Wii, which featured an entire side quest dealing with Birdie's gender before the main character comes to the conclusion that Birdie is indeed a trans woman.
Where Nintendo Should Treat Birdetta Better
As a whole, Birdie is seen as the woman she deserves to be recognized as in many Mario titles. In Mario Kart 8, she's seen on a "Woman of Racing Organization" advert alongside Daisy and Peach, as well as Paper Mario: the Origami King featuring a scene where Birdetta kisses Mario as part of a stage play. The latter was done for laughs, but only in the case of Mario being unexpectedly kissed, and Birdie's gender isn't brought up as any part of the otherwise humorous scene, compared to previous titles.
While more recent games have been rather positive in response to Birdetta being a trans woman, there's still some work to be done to respect Mario's oldest trans character. In Super Mario Party, there seems to have been a miscommunication with localization, as the US versions of the game refer to Birdie with she/her pronouns, but the PAL versions of the game use he/him pronouns. This comes off as rather disrespectful to the character, as recent portrayals of Birdie consistently refer to her appropriately as a woman.
However, this isn't the biggest problem regarding Birdie, as for the last thirty years, she has been called the wrong name ever since she first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2. While later Mario games tend to imply that the Birdo race is a species similar to Yoshi, and gets called the name of the species similarly to the loyal dinosaur, there's still an issue with how no other games even try to refer to her as Birdie, either. In this regard, Nintendo still needs to give Birdetta the respect she's owed for years when it comes to her portrayal.
While each Mario game definitely doesn't need to explicitly mention that she's a trans girl in every release, doing simple gestures such as making sure localization teams get Birdie's preferred name and pronouns right goes a long way regarding transgender representation. For general lore, simply leaving it that Birdo is a general species, implying Birdie went through a transition of some kind to better suit herself, would be a wonderful way to broach this topic respectfully. Times have changed since Birdetta, otherwise known as Birdo, first appeared, and Nintendo should do what it can to embrace that fact for the sake of the transgender and LGBT fans the company has.