The article is the epitome of journalism as well.

However, as noted by YouTuber ShortFatOtaku

Riveting source.

the original Japanese version of the game describes the character as an otokonoko or a femboy,

Elementary Japanese mistake so rediculous it basically calls into question anything this person says.

Otokonoko. 男の子

男 man 子child

Proper translation "Boy".

Like go look it up in any dictionary.

Anyway I've known about this for awhile as the trans elements on Nintendo sides of the internet would never shut up about it. Basically, it looks like this character was referred to as a boy in Japanese version, and was changed to be a girl in international version likely because Nintendo didn't want to cause friction with the US market. Or perhaps they figured it was just easier to not bother with the "joke" that the cute feminine looking creature thing is actually a boy the whole time since Japanese is naturally vague with pronouns where English is not.

Can't find textual evidence the character is trans though. Just loads of internet types screaming about it. Might have changed that in the rerelease as it seems the script got a rewrite but it looks to me so far that they've written it slyly enough that it's not outright. Probably to try to avoid a daily wire piece.

Nintendo has been typically pretty good at trying to stay out of this sort of thing but you've seen I creep in a little bit with their recent titles trying to avoid gendered terminology and the like on character select screens.

Gone are the old pokemon (are you a boy or a girl) and replaced with a more neutral (choose your character) type prompt for example.