Trans Luigi

Submission 40,874

Part of a series on Luigi. [View Related Entries]

About

Trans Luigi refers to a fan theory that Nintendo character Luigi is transgender. The theory is fueled by several instances in Nintendo lore in which Luigi seems eager to take on female identity and picked up steam after Nintendo explicitly said that the Super Crown item in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe could only be used with Toadette, adding "Sorry Luigi!" to the item's description.

Origin

On January 4th, 2019, ResetEra forums member JB2448 submitted a thread titled "It's canon that only Toadette can use the Super Crown," which contained a screenshot from the official New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe website stating "Sorry Luigi – only Toadette can use this item!" (shown below).

Spread

The reference to Luigi in the New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe fueled fan theories that Luigi is trans. That day, several tweets were posted lending credence to the theory. For example, Twitter user @joffeorama posted several popular tweets that stated Nintendo's apparent joke about Luigi made it canon that they "low-key" dropped that "Luigi wants to transition"^[1] (shown below, left). User @kob_critic posted fan art of Luigi in front of a Trans Lesbian Pride Flag (shown below, right).

Other Twitter users noted that this was not the first time in Nintendo lore that Nintendo had made reference to Luigi being interested in acting more feminine. User @TheTasteofALiar^[2] pointed to several images from Nintendo's canon which illustrated the point: that Luigi is the Queen piece in Mario Chess; a comic still of Luigi saying he enjoyed wearing Princess Peach's clothes; and a portion of Mario and Luigi SuperStar Saga where Luigi dresses as Peach to trick Bowletta. Daily Dot^[3] also pointed out that the Mama Luigi meme spawned from the Super Mario World television series added to Luigi's history of being open to gender fluidity.

In response to the dialogue, some users pointed out that the examples used to support the "Trans Luigi" theory only proved that Luigi was okay with cross dressing and may not be trans.^[3]^[4]