Footnotes: Birdo's Gender Confusion

Welcome to Footnotes! These are short interesting facts about video games that are not well known. I thought about making a video series for this, but I figured text versions are just as fine (and would save me a lot of time!). These are exclusive to the website, so come back every week for a new Footnote.

Our first Footnote is on Birdo. Growing up I always assumed Birdo was a female. She had eyelashes, a bow in her hair, and was usually associate as the female counterpart to Yoshi. Mario has Peach, Luigi has Daisy, Toad has Toadette, so Yoshi has Birdo....right?

While researching Super Mario Bros. 2, I was going over the original manual when I stumbled across this interesting quote from the enemies section. Please note Birdo and Ostro's name were accidentally switched in the manual.


HE!? That's right, according to the original manual, Birdo is actually a male. This is also true in Japan, where Birdo is known as Catherine. This would make Birdo, as far as I know, the very first transsexual video game character. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the Birdo trophy describes her as "indeterminate gender." Today, Nintendo pokes fun at the gender confusion of Birdo. She is actually a character in the game Captain Rainbow (which is only available in Japan as of now). She speaks with a deep male voice and gets thrown in jail for walking into the women's bathroom.

I think it is pretty safe to say that today, Nintendo feels Birdo is a female, even if they poke fun at her every once in a while.