These Nintendo Characters are Canonically Transgender or Nonbinary

…because The Legend of Zelda made me trans.

I’ve been saying it for years — if you love the Zelda games, you aren’t cis. The series is packed to the gills with beautifully androgynous characters, tough, masculine women, feminine, graceful men, and people who switch their gender presentation for reasons either strategic or personal. At times, the gender-bending and transitioning is acknowledged outright; other times it is implied by character design or clothing and mannerisms.

In some games, the titular Zelda is absent, leading many players (including me, when I first picked up Link’s Awakening in third grade) to assume the pretty, angularly-faced, androgynous hero was a female knight named Zelda. In Ocarina of Time, Zelda herself physically transforms into Sheik, a wide-shouldered, flat-chested warrior, and is referred to with male pronouns. In Breath of the Wild, Link is given a female Gerudo outfit by a “male” Hylian who identifies as female. In Triforce Heroes, Link dons a dress and is clearly overjoyed to do so. Of course, his standard clothing — a long tunic and tights — is already gender neutral, even feminine.

I’ve encountered a lot of trans people, over the years, who share my affinity for the Zelda series. The games speak to us for a lot of…