"What the hell is "non-binary"?"
Nott shure. I am befuddled by this gender bender stuff. It's all psychological, although it may have some genetic and/or biochemical components.
From a biological physiology standpoint, all mammals I'm aware of are either male or female. Some may be homosexual or gender confused, butt from a genetic and physiology/anatomy standpoint they are either a male or female.
Now in humans specifically, there are genetic anomalies whereby an XY individual does nott develop male anatomy (the female is the default gender - the precursor tissues/organs will by default develop into female (Mullerian ducts) sex organs if there is an XY with a defective Y or testosterone deficiency. If an XY individual is normal functioning, those precursors develop into male sex organs (Wolffian ducts). The same starter tissue will become an ovary or a testis, a penis or a clitoris, a scrotum or labia - these are all the same things that develop differently in males and females. Men, you will notice a fusion line (like a welding line) in the center of your scrotum - that is where the tissue that becomes labia in females fuses to become a scrotum. Your testes would have descended through what would have otherwise been a vagina into your scrotum. And while ovaries remain up in the abdomen for women, these same starting tissues become testes up near the kidneys and will descend before puberty - and, if nott, testosterone injections are administered to cause teste descent into the scrotum - many males, including my cousin and A. Hitler, had a single testicle descend. In my cousin's case, he had surgery to tack the undescended one down in the scrotum.
There are rare genetic situations where (1) a male develops as a male, butt nott so masculine and usually sterile - that is Kleinfelter Syndrome, or a genetic female (who may have only one X chromosome and the other X is damaged or absent) who fails to develop female secondary sex characteristics like wide hips, breasts, and extra subdermal fat (such as in thighs, buttocks, and mostly everywhere) - this is Turner's Syndrome and the patients often look like pre-pubescent boys their whole lives and are often sterile, butt are genetically and, based on primary sex organs, female. These are the main type of syndromes where one might refer to these people as 'in-between', butt even so they do nott have ambiguous genitalia - they are either male or female butt just lack reproductive ability and secondary sex characteristics (body hair, beard growth, breasts, wide hips, libido).
That's the biology from a physiological, anatomical, and genetic standpoint. The issue that has become prominent today is people, like Bruce-Kaitlyn Jenner, who psychologically don't like or feel comfortable with their gender, so they often seek hormone therapy and surgery to change themselves to mimic the other gender. Oddly, Bruce was happy enough as a male until a later point in his life when he decided he'd rather be viewed as a female. IIRC, Bruce (or Kaitlyn) has stated that s/he is not sexually attracted to men, so this is a bit puzzling. This seems to be a psycho-social issue for the individuals who wish to change their gender identity. So these folks do not change their gender from a biological point of view, then do have surgery and hormone treatment to change their appearance so they appear to be the other gender and can act socially like the other gender and they can believe that they are the other gender.
So I think it is rather foolish to put 'other' as a gender - that is wrong, you cannot change your gender. You can change your gender identity - with or without hormones and surgery. So perhaps the question should be gender identity rather than gender. And as for birth certificates, they really need to be binary, because at birth humans are either male or female; whether later in life they psychologically identify with the other gender is a separate question. Butt at birth it's binary with a very, very few exceptions.
I don't care what someone's gender identity is, butt their birth certificates, as medical records, need to reflect their biological gender at birth.
Universities are dens of Bizarro World political correctness. If they change the question to gender identity, then that's at least a plausible question. I'd recommend everyone simply choose to ignore it or put Decline to Answer. Which is what I do and recommend others do for questions about one's race or racial identity. It's simply irrelevant.
For universities and collitches, all they should be interested in is one's test scores, grades, essays, and extracurricular activities. The applicant's race, racial identity, gender, and gender identity should be irrelevant for admission and should only, at most, be relevant for housing, if that. Most U's and collitches have co-ed dorms, and also single gender dorms. Lett the admitted applicants choose which of these they want to live in and, only if other residents object in a single gender residence hall or house, do a DNA test on the problem individual and if they are biologically of the other gender, then offer them to room in a co-ed dorm or the single gender dorm of the genetic test result. Or they can live off-campus. Butt a single room in a co-ed dorm should nott pose an issue for them, regardless of their gender identification.
Prisons are another area where gender-bending has produced prollems. I suspeck this will all sort itself ~OUTT in time with some policy decisions and more trial-and-error of prison housing options.
And of course problems in sports are now arising from this phenomenon at a brisk rate, as biological males who identify as females are typically beating the snot ~OUTT of biological females in track-and-field and other sports (team and individual events/sports). Bruce/Kaitlyn is a bit old now, butt if he could have competed as a female even 20 or certainly 30 years ago, he could have cleaned up on individual female Olympic track and field events - and the heptathalon - even at twice the age of his nearest competitors. And in sports like weightlifting, wrestling, basketball - fuggetaboutit. Contrarywise, I doubt there will ever be a biological female who could ever win gold in a men's Olympic track and field event - even if they make unlimited anabolic steroids legal for the Olympics in the future.
Gender identity is an interesting topic to think about. It's nott so interesting to biologists, except some of those who study psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and human sexuality.
And to close, I've written before about our current bunny, a female, who was spayed, and her prior mate, a male who was neutered. He was a larger bun, and laid back. She would routinely mount him and start pumping away while he would tolerate it and look up as if to say 'why me?' - we never once observed him try to mount her. So, even in the bunny world things can be confusing.
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