User blog comment:Commdor/Vote for ME3's Female Shepard/@comment-84037-20110725013111/@comment-2059511-20110725030437

Bioware would never say that a particular version of Shepard was canon, because that would alienate players who prefer to customize him. But the Shepard they use in all the marketing, and i believe the only one that has a real life human model, is the default male. That model IS considered canon whenever the word "canon" comes into play.