In a recent Q&A post from Arc System Works, the dev team of Guilty Gear Strive explicitly commented on the situation of Bridget.
There’s been a debate in the Guilty Gear fandom over Bridget’s identity after an ending in the game where Bridget explicitly refers to herself as a girl.
Until now, the character had identified as a man who had been compelled to present as a woman due to her village’s superstition; a superstition which claimed male twins were a bad omen. In order to skirt the rules, Bridget’s parents raised her as a girl and her twin brother as a boy.
Many fans who claimed she wasn’t trans blamed the change in identity on activist localizers, and claimed that they were ideologically motivated to alter a character who’s traditionally identified as a man despite appearances.
Fans who insisted that she is trans used this ending as confirmation that she is trans, despite it not being the character’s “perfect” ending.
After a month of in-fighting, fake e-mails, and Twitter drama, Arc System Works finally felt the need to weigh in with their September 14 Developer’s Backyard. We’ve included both the official English translation, and the original Japanese statements for greater context.
English:
(Ishiwatari)
We’ve received many inquiries about Bridget’s gender. After the events of Bridget’s story in Arcade Mode, she self-identifies as a woman.
So, as to whether “he” or “she” would be the correct pronoun for Bridget, the answer would be “she.”
As mentioned in her character profile, Bridget was born as the younger twin son and then raised as a girl by her parents to protect her from a village superstition.
Despite their intentions to protect Bridget, it pained her parents to do so as they felt they were forcing her to live a certain way.Bridget, realizing this, attempted to bring wealth to the village while behaving like a man, thus overturning the village superstition, as a way to free her parents from their guilt.
As a result, the superstition faded, and nothing remained to restrict how both Bridget and her parents lived.
After this, Bridget tries living as a man, but it doesn’t feel right.
This is where the Arcade Mode story begins. After her exchanges with Goldlewis and Ky, Bridget faces parts of herself she has tried to ignore, and makes a big decision for herself.
I hope that all of you will watch over her path after her courageous choice to stay true to her own feelings.
(Katano)
By the way, although the difficulty and story dialogue of Arcade Mode change depending on your match results, this doesn’t change the main plot, nor are there alternate endings such as “good” or “bad” endings. The same goes for other characters’ Arcade stories as well. In general, these variations show other aspects of the characters.
Japanese:
（石渡）
ブリジットの性別について多くお問い合わせ頂いているのですが、アーケードモードのブリジットストーリーを経て、ブリジットは自分を女性と自認するようになりました。
なので『彼』と『彼女』のどちらの代名詞が正しいかと聞かれたら、ブリジットは『彼女』にあてはまります。
前述のキャラクター説明にもあります通り、双子の弟として生まれたブリジットは、村の迷信から守るために両親が性別を隠して女の子として育てています。
しかしブリジットの両親は、迷信から守るためとはいえブリジットに生き方を強制させていると感じ、心を痛めます。
その事にブリジットは気づき、男として振る舞いつつ己の活躍で村を豊かにする、つまり迷信をくつがえすことで、彼女の両親が抱くブリジットに生き方を強いているという罪悪感から解放しようとしました。
結果として村から迷信は消え、両親も彼女も生き方に縛られる必要が無くなりました。
その後、ブリジットは男として過ごそうとして違和感を感じます。
アーケードモードのストーリーはここから始まります。ブリジットはゴールドルイスやカイとの交流を経たうえで、これまで敢えて目を背けてきた彼女自身と向き合い、彼女にとっての大きな決断をすることにしました。
彼女が勇気を出して、自分自身の気持ちに噓偽りなく選択したその道を、皆さんに見守っていただければ幸いです。
（片野）
ちなみにアーケードモードは対戦結果に応じて難易度やストーリーの会話も変化するようにしていますが、それによって本筋が変わったり、所謂グッドやバッドエンディングのような別の結末があるものではありません。他のキャラクターのアーケードストーリーも等しく、基本的にはキャラクターの違った一面を見せるような内容を用意しています。
For those who decide to run the original Japanese through a translator like DeepL, you’ll find that the Japanese statements appear to largely line up with the official English.
This means Bridget is canonically trans and is more accurately referred to as she/her, which can be summed up in the Japanese statement: “なので『彼』と『彼女』のどちらの代名詞が正しいかと聞かれたら、ブリジットは『彼女』にあてはまります。 [So if you ask me which pronoun is correct, ‘he’ or ‘she’, Bridget applies to ‘she’]”.
The developer statement also acknowledges the argument which claims that the multiple endings aren’t canon; explicitly stating that the different endings are canon as they all take place along the same narrative.
With this statement the canon appears to be settled, though fans will likely continue to debate whether this change was the developer’s original intent.
