That sounds like a great option for use within your account. On the other hand, someone could easily want to be referred to as "he" in his UI, but not want to present that to other users.
That's because there are really two questions at play here:
1. What gender do I want to identify myself as?
2. Do I want to publicly publish this information?
The issue is being muddied because some people that answer 'no' to question #2 are using the gender of 'Other' as a hack around the system, when in reality their gender identity is not 'Other.' This in effect co-opts the gender identity of 'Other' from the people that truly want to be gender-identified as 'Other.' Now when you view a profile with a gender of 'Other' you can't be sure if the person really identifies as 'Other' or if they identify as male/female, but are trying to hide it.
We could easily frame this problem in a different light without getting into the "OMG! There are really only two genders! I hate all this PC bullshit!" discussion. If Google+ made mandatory both choosing a gender (only a binary male/female choice) and publishing that choice publicly, then a lot of women that wish to hide their gender would choose 'Male.' Now the gender field is useless because you've designed a system that doesn't fit your users' needs, forcing them to provide you with wrong information.
