In later printings, mention of Birdo being male was omitted, and further not included in most later games with the character. In the Japanese version, Birdo is referred as 'Catherine' where it is also stated that the character is a man who wishes to be a woman. In the first-edition manual for the North American release of the game, Birdo is referred to as a 'male who believes that he is a female' and would rather be called 'Birdetta', making her the first transgender character for Nintendo. Ralph, who wrote the game, later released a straightwashed version called 'Murder on Main Street' and published by Heizer Software. Ī murder mystery problem solving game for Apple Mac computers written in the HyperCard language, distributed on underground gay bulletin boards, starring the lesbian detective Tracker McDyke. In one of the possible storylines it is revealed that Vivien, a friend of Lord Jack, was in a relationship with his former fiancée Deirdre-before her apparent suicide-and was jealous that she chose Lord Jack over her. The main antagonist and left-wing terrorist Carlos, who wants to blow up the Berlin Wall, is gay and a lot of the action is spent in gay nightclubs and public baths. The culprit in the murder mystery is revealed to be the tailor, Paco, who is gay and deals drugs.

And of those, only eight feature a main character who is explicitly pre-written as queer as opposed to them being queer as a character creation option. Of those 179 games, only 83 have queer characters who are playable characters. In 2018, Gamesradar's Sam Greer pored through thousands of gaming titles and found 179 games with any LGBT representation. However, more efforts were found to make more diverse and less one-dimensional characters.

In the 1990s, games (often Japanese ones) continued to use stereotypical LGBT characters which did not reflect the diversity in LGBT communities. During the 1980s, characters that can be argued as identifying as LGBTQ+ were rarely shown in a realistic or non-stereotypical context and were often the objects of ridicule or jokes.

Games where character transforms gender