Vivian from Paper Mario is canonically trans in Italy
So a lot of people probably know that Vivian from Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door was meant to be a trans woman. I think it's very interesting to look into how this was portrayed in different languages and how it comes off.
We start off with kind of a sad part. In the japanese and most of european versions she's clearly identified as trangender, but in a really shitty way. Her sisters misgender her, the game misgenders her, and no one really defends her at all. Here's an example of a line from the party menu that is the same for the japanese, french, german and spanish version of the game:
A former member of the Shadow Trio.
He may look like a girl, but he's actually a boy.
Now, obviously, this is really bad. Probably to avoid this, in the english translation this whole thing was removed. There is no mention about her being trans and her sisters just call her ugly instead. Obviously not great either, since it's kinda erasing a trans character.
One of the Shadow Sirens,
Vivian suffers from a bit of an inferiority complex.
Now, here's the neat thing. You can see that there is no mention of the italian language in this post. Now, why might this be? Well:
An ex-member of the Shadow Trio.
She used to be a man, but now she's a woman and proud of it.
Now, this is really fucking cool I think. The italian translators actually doubled down about her being trans and in a super positive way. Now yes the wording is a bit rough but like, isn't this super cool? It's not an isolated case either. At one point of the game her sisters are being transphobic: in the japanese version she just apologizes, while in the italian one she asserts herself saying that "she's proud to have turned into a woman".
This was in 2004 in a Nintendo game, mind you, and trust me: Italy isn't exactly a bastion of progressiveness. So, personally, I think this is really fucking cool.
