: The best thing about gender is that it isn't a "this or that" for
: many people and indeed in many cultures. It's more like "this, that,
: maybe a little bit of that over there, gimme some of this, oh and a lot of
: that too, and/or actually just give me some of that other stuff,
: etc." Male and female gender is a binary concept and the politics
: behind it are vast and I could go into it at length but I won't for your
: sake. In any case, however, this is how Noble Six could have had a
: canonically non-descript gender in canon to reflect gameplay.

: The player in Reach gets to choose Noble Six's gender at a whim. Canon
: should play into that and give Halo its first gender non-conforming
: character. Make it so Six doesn't care whether they're presented as more
: masculine or more feminine, or anything else, because they themselves
: don't prohibit their identity to one or the other. The character is
: already mysterious enough. Having their gender be everywhere would lend to
: that mystique. Not to mention Halo needs a lot more queer characters. I
: think there's been at two visibly queer characters at the most over the
: course of the 14-year franchise. Representation is awesome and for fans
: it's an amazing feeling.

I would agree in most cases that this could have been done. However, the way colonists or other Spartans on Reach would have seen Six walking, speaking, or had seen the general physique would have betrayed the gender under the helmet I would think. The female gender type in the game was different enough from the male counterpart to make it apparent.

When addressing details in the Visual Guide entry on Noble Six such as character weight might not have fit with the rest of the team (considering all male body types in the game were identical). Some of this is gameplay concession, granted. Virtually all media graphics, pics, and screenshots depicted Six as male as well except those that were talking about the gender selection functionality. I think it was in everyone's heads that Six was fictionally make despite that each game player could experience the game with their choice.