I agree trans people still exist even without gender identity. I think the trans people who use the term use it to try to legitimize themselves- not as trans, which they just are by virtue of transitioning, but as actually being the sex (though they say gender, men and women are not gendered terms) they wish to transition to, if that makes sense.

Eta- it also allows the people who call themselves trans but take no steps to transition to call themselves the opposite sex/gender.

I also think they think it destigmatizes them. Like, instead of carrying the stigma of mental illness, they can claim it’s not mental illness, it’s a sense of identity that we just don’t understand because we aren’t trans. It’s why they push “cis” on people who aren’t trans. It’s all to further the narrative that transwomen are women and transmen are men and the only difference (which we should see as insignificant) is “birth sex” or “assigned gender at birth”. Gender identity and murky arguments about phenotypes and secondary sex characteristics are all, imo, desperate attempts to convince themselves and us that they are the sex they wish they were born.

The concept of gender identity only works if 1) you’re not paying attention and just accept what tras tell you for the sake of being able to call yourself woke or 2) the people they call “cis” all more or less behave, think, and feel the same way, according to their sex. But if women and men as varied as the ones I listed in my question to masks can all exist and understand themselves to be the sex/gender they were born, it makes the idea of gender identity a bit ridiculous to me.