In the latter half of the 20th century, the U.S. saw the emergence of two movements: the Gay Rights movement and the growing popularity of video games. As gay rights continued to gain ground and video games remained popular, it was inevitable that the two would eventually intersect, creating a variety of LGBTQ characters.
LGBTQ video game characters existed as early as the 1980s. According to PCGamer.com, “Infocom offered a gay bloke in the sci-fi Circuit’s Edge (1990), and half of a lesbian couple in Moonmist (1986).” While those two games are the first instances of gay and lesbian characters, neither of them were playable. According to the article, the world had to wait for the bisexual Curtis Craig of 1996’s Phantasmagoria 2 for a playable LGBTQ character.
Birdo from the Super Mario series of video games is often singled out as the first transgender video game character. Birdo first appeared in Super Mario Bros. 2. The manual describes the character (called Ostro at the time) as one who “thinks he is a girl and spits eggs from his mouth. He’d rather be called ‘Bridetta.’” While never renamed “Birdetta,” Birdo’s gender has been heavily discussed.
According to Wired.com, “Either Nintendo retconned Birdo’s gender crisis out of existence by turning him into a her, or, if you’re following Reitz’s interpretation, Birdo had a sex change operation. Either way, Birdo’s referred to as a ‘her’ in modern games like Mario Tennis.”
According to game designer Jennifer Reitz, in Mario Tennis, “there is no mention of Birdo as a male … Instead, Birdo is uniformly referred to as female, as a ‘she.’” Reitz also discussed Birdo’s acceptance among the characters in the game: “A picture in the Mario Tennis manual shows Birdo and Yoshi, Mario’s very favorite dinosaur pal, together apparently as a romantic couple!”
However, lack of transgender acceptance in the United States has been blamed for trying to bury the question about Birdo’s gender. The Escapist wrote an article about Japan’s openness about sexual identity in contrast to the U.S. The article titled “Too Gay for U.S.A.,” discusses the bow Birdo wears on her head. According to the article, “It seems like a harmless distinction, but this simple act of cross-dressing was soon erased from the history books. In all subsequent Mario releases, Birdo is referred to as a female, completely ignoring his gender-confused roots.” Despite the controversy surrounding Birdo’s gender, Birdo would pave the way for more transgender characters in future video games.
In 1989, a year after the release of Super Mario Bros. 2, Final Fight was released and included the character Poison. Poison’s transgender status came about because of Capcom’s hesitance about having a male character beat up a female. According to The Escapist, “Capcom instead claimed that Poison (and her palette swap Roxy) were both hiding a secret underneath their tight leather miniskirts. Both characters were, in fact, “newhalfs”; a Japanese colloquialism for transgender people who were, at the time, famous in the country’s club scene.” Poison would appear in future games including 2012’s Street Fighter X Tekken.
“I’m very happy to have fans continue to discuss that [Poison’s transgender status], but once again we’re not going to give an official answer,” said Yoshinori Ono, the game’s producer, in an interview. “We’re happy to leave that open and up to individual fans.”
Even if Ono and Capcom refuse to speak on the matter, there have been too many hints to ignore. According to gamespot.com, “Initial win screens for characters that defeated Poison earlier in development of Street Fighter X Tekken showed them saying things like, ‘Your looks can be deceiving! I should be careful not to fall into your trap,’ and ‘You’re not very ladylike at all. I felt like I was fighting against a guy.’”
Going into the 1990s, more popular game franchises began to develop that included LGBTQ characters. The Fallout series claimed the title of the first game to include same-sex marriage. According to a 2012 article by rockpapershotgun.com, “As of this writing, California, the state Fallout 2 takes place in, still hasn’t legalized gay marriage. But it was an option in a game made in 1998, amazingly. In 2012, most games still don’t include gay romance options, much less gay marriage.” Other games, such as Mass Effect, The Sims 3, Skyrim and more, allow gay marriage. According to ign.com, “If you’re a gay character in Mass Effect, The Sims or Skyrim, nobody really cares. You don’t face discrimination from other characters or find yourself forced to justify your identity and choices to those around you.”
In BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), there is a female Jedi named Juhani who is believed to be a lesbian. According to an article by GayGamer.net, “If you choose to kill her [Juhani], a female Jedi at the temple will lambaste you for murdering her beloved one — stating that she and Juhani spent many nights under the stars together.”
While all of the Persona games include homosexual characters, Kanji from Persona 4 (2008) is perhaps the most discussed. The characters in Persona 4 face off against hidden parts of themselves. According The Escapist, “In Kanji’s alternate world, his other self appears as a near-nude ‘gay’ sounding version of himself who inhabits a men’s bathhouse, strongly suggesting the character houses homosexual desires.” The article quotes an interview with Yu Namba, the project leader for Persona 4, saying, “What matters is that Kanji’s other self cries out, ‘Accept me for who I am!’ I think it’s a powerful message which many, if not all of us can relate to.”
A recent game I played that features a homosexual character is The Last of Us (2013), which is set in a new future after a deadly infection spreads throughout the U.S. While not the main character, Bill is introduced in the first half of the game as a paranoid survivor living outside of Boston, in a town full of traps he set to
keep the military and infected away.
After travelling through town for a little bit, you find the body of Frank, who Bill calls his “partner.” Ellie, a teenage girl travelling with Joel, the main character, manages to swipe a gay porn magazine from Bill as well, which also suggests Bill is gay. Sam Einhorn of GayGamer.net approved of Bill’s portrayal, saying, “It’s not a big reveal, nobody turned it into a bullet point on the press release, and the character isn’t treated any differently by the narrative just because he’s gay.”
Members of the University of Tampa community approve of having more LGBTQ characters in video games.
“I think having LGBTQ characters in video games allows people to realize that the LGBTQ population is big and exists in all facets of life,” said Devin Phinazee, a junior graphic design major and member of GLTSBA. “It also normalizes the idea of LGBTQ people.”
The number of LGBTQ characters in video games has been growing and is still on the rise.
“With the recent increase in LGBTQ characters,” Phinazee said. “I only see it rising in the future as society becomes more okay with the idea of LGBTQ people.”
With games like The Last of Us and Mass Effect portraying homosexual characters and relationships in an honest and unbiased light, it seems as if LGBTQ will soon become an accepted and completely normal part of gaming as we know it.
Jake Koniszewski can be reached at john.konizewski@spartans.ut.edu