GLAAD has recognised Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door amongst its 2025 Media Awards nominations for games best-representing LGBTQ+ people, and the uniqueness of their lives. It’s been given the nod amongst a host of other games, including Life is Strange: Double Exposure and Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
While GLAAD does not specify which moment led to Paper Mario‘s nomination, it’s likely for the game’s representation of Vivian, a ghost witch who is a transgender woman. Notably, Vivian was depicted as a transgender woman in the original Japanese version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door which released in 2004. Initial translations of this game removed this aspect of her character, but the 2024 remake of the game restored her identity, and much of her original dialogue.
Throughout the game, Vivian discusses her struggles fitting in, and explicitly refers to herself as trans. It’s likely for this reason that GLAAD his given
Here’s the full list of other nominees in the video game category:
- Caravan SandWitch (Studio Plane Toast / Dear Villagers)
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard (BioWare / Electronic Arts)
- Dread Delusion (Lovely Hellplace / DreadXP)
- Dustborn (Red Thread Games / Spotlight by Quantic Dream)
- Fear the Spotlight (Cozy Game Pals / Blumhouse Games)
- Life is Strange: Double Exposure (Deck Nine / Square Enix)
- Minds Beneath Us (BearBone Studio)
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Intelligent Systems /
Nintendo ) - Sorry We’re Closed (à la mode games / Akupara Games)
- Until Then (Polychroma Games / Maximum Entertainment)
Read: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door – Review
All the nominated games represent LGBTQ+ people in a meaningful way, and with a view to illuminate their own personal struggles and experiences, in all the many forms they take.
“The GLAAD Media Awards were created nearly four decades ago to champion LGBTQ stories amid a deeply hostile and unsafe time for our community. Today, this mission holds true and ever-more important as attacks against LGBTQ people are not only growing, but finding new avenues,” Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD President and CEO said of the awards.
“Whether it’s rampant misinformation or defamation of transgender people, LGBTQ youth, or the shocking corporate rollback of policies and programs that keep LGBTQ people seen and safe in a workforce, what will always prevail is our truth and talent.”
The annual GLAAD media awards will take place later this year in Los Angeles, United States. You can read more about the awards and other media nominated on the GLAAD website.