Dear Mr. Presidents,

I'd like to start out by saying I have been a die-hard Nintendo fangirl for as long as i can remember. One of my earliest, most prized memories is opening up a Super Nintendo Entertainment System bundle with Super Mario World and Mario Paint on the morning of December 25, 1991 -- and ever since, I have owned every single Nintendo home console (camped out for the Wii) and just about every iteration of every portable Nintendo console since the original Game Boy. If I were to tally the amount of hours of I've spent on Nintendo games and consoles, it would easily fall somewhere north of a couple months (seriously - probably at least a month on Super Smash Bros. alone.) I've just always been drawn to the vibrant color palettes, personality, and general level of creativity that can honestly only be found on Nintendo consoles.

As a transgender woman, I struggled to relate to many of the other children my age growing up, so video games quickly became my venue for escape. Since I started with the SNES, my first introduction to Birdetta was with Super Mario All-Stars. I remember being fascinated with the very different, bizarre world of Super Mario Bros 2 at the time and Birdetta especially -- at least until I found out later how she was treated by the original game manual, and countless other "jokes" about her gender identity through various games and advertisements throughout the years.

The SMB2 manual reads:
He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called birdetta.

It may not have been clear enough back then when this manual was printed, but these statements are enough to determine that she should be referred to as Birdetta, and anything else is intentionally disrespecting her. These types of messages are actually the same types of messages which perpetuate and promote the oppression of transgender women all over the world. Invalidating her gender identity like that is erasure of transgender identities and directly contributes to the ongoing epidemic of harassment, bullying, violence, suicide, and murder of transgender women. Plain and simple.

And the fact that she is a fictional video game character does not make a difference. We all know how important it is to be able to relate with the characters we see in the media, and personally, I would have loved to been able to look at Birdetta, the first transgender video game character, and not been ashamed of myself while further repressing the recognition of my own gender identity for many, many years.

After all, shouldn't the girlfriend of Yoshi, one of Nintendo's most beloved characters and Mario's faithful companion, deserve more respect?! (Why isn't Yoshi standing up for her - is he afraid of his own sexuality?!)

Please get with the times Nintendo.

Love,
Jessica