: Noble Six was only identified as a man until after their first entry in the
: Haloverse in an encyclopedia. Their first canon mention of Six as a man
: happened years later with New Blood. Despite my feelings on the topic,
: I'll trust the latter over the former given that the encyclopedias are
: typically riddled with errors and needless oversights. So with that, after
: so long, you had most people considering Noble Six's canon gender to be as
: mysterious as their very personality, only for the character to become
: another male lead in a Halo main series shooter. That's three for three
: now with the Master Chief, the Rookie, and now Noble Six.

For me, the issue wasn't with gender representation, but with consistency and attention to writing. It only bugged me because it's not hard at all to replace:

"Noble Six was a good man."

with

"Noble Six was a good Spartan."

: Dirt has an openly queer relationship among two lesbian women, including
: Felicia Sanderson, as well as a supporting character who is also a
: lesbian. So far those three are the only noted queer people in Halo in the
: only story that highlights their existence in the universe. Meanwhile, you
: have visibly heterosexual relationships galore in the Kilo-Five Trilogy,
: Forerunner Saga, Halo 3: ODST and New Blood, Spartan Ops, Contact Harvest,
: and one that's debatable with the Master Chief and Cortana. ODST and New
: Blood stand out so much because three of the four of the six human
: characters are in visibly straight relationships (Buck and Dare, Dutch and
: his wife Gretchen, and Romeo and the galaxy). Mickey doesn't give much
: indication, and Rookie is well... yeah. Then you have the straight bro
: fest between DeMarco and Madsen in Spartan Ops.

I'm all for representation and equality in fiction and in life. That said... in both fiction and life, I don't go around judging people for being who they are. Including straight or cisgendered people. A lot of what I see above almost comes across as heterophobic. I mean... do you go around judging straight people in real life the way you do in fiction? I think most of us just read a story and accept it, or see a person and accept them. We shouldn't get mad at them or try to change their mind, just like we shouldn't with how a fictional character's written.

Halo's future has always been very based in contemporary times. Transgenderism and even non-heterosexual relationships are just now starting to become more openly accepted, so it only follows that Halo will catch up as society does. I'm not saying it's where we should be at, but you still can't deny the reality of how things currently are.

I'm not saying to stop being vocal and to stop pushing the developers to do a better job at this... I just think you have to keep your expectations grounded, and above all be understanding.