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This all sounds perfectly sensible - until you apply it to literally any other trait based on a biological substrate, at which point the reasoning collapses and the motivated reasoning is exposed.
One of the things people most frequently say about my physical appearance is that I look much younger than I am: people from all walks of life consistently place me at about four-five years younger than I actually am (and I've gone to no especial lengths to bring about this state of affairs other than regular exercise and moisturising my face when I remember to). Does it therefore follow that I have an "age identity" which is wholly distinct from my physical age? In the classic case, "age identity" seems to be something like "my best guess as to how much time has passed since you were born", but perhaps in trans-age-positive spaces "age identity" is more like "my best guess as to which age you would feel most comfortable if people thought you were that age". Which implies that Madonna's "biological age" is 66, but her "age identity" is 21. Perhaps it would be trans-age-phobic of me to remind her of her biological age (like sending her out an automated email urging her to get checked for breast cancer, as her age puts her at high risk for that condition), rather than "affirming" her age identity at every turn.
You don't have to be Rachel Dolezal to be mistaken for someone of a different ethnic group. I've had people start talking to me in Finnish unprompted, even though I'm not Finnish, have no Finnish ancestry and have never even set foot in Finland. I have Mexican friends who get driven up the wall by people thinking they're Brazilian. Does it therefore follow that everyone has an "ethnic identity" wholly distinct from their actual ethnic background?
Sometimes you think someone's skinny, then you weigh them and it turns out they're heavier than they look. Does it therefore imply that...
Rather than having to invent this whole elaborate set of epicycles around gender as a trait wholly distinct from sex, I would propose what I feel is a more elegant solution. "Humans are constantly observing and categorising other humans. Over time, they build up expectations of what a typical member of a given exclusive category looks like (or acts like, or sounds like etc.). Because everyone's training data is different, no one's training data is perfect, and there is huge variability in what the members of a sufficiently large category will look, act or sound like - inevitably some amount of humans will miscategorise Person X as a member of category A when they are in fact a member of category B. It does not therefore follow that Person X really is a member of category A in some kind of mysterious ineffable spiritual sense which transcends mere biology. The above is true of any category with a sufficiently large number of members - for any given sex, ethnic group, sexuality, age, height, mass, disability status, annual income, profession, dietary restrictions, level of educational attainment, criminal record etc. there will always be some amount of people who get categorised into the wrong category by one or more people. This is a normal human error, and the appropriate response is a simple 'oh sorry, my bad': we are not required to invent elaborate ancillary concepts and entire academic disciplines to explain and elaborate upon this discrepancy between individual expectation and observable reality."
People routinely get surgeries to try and look younger. There's a rather huge industry around catering to people's "age identity" and trying to "pass" as a younger age than they really are. It is in fact considered rude to go around pointing out that people are older than they look.
No one is going around calling women in heels "deceptive" even if it does make them seem taller.
Given all that, why should I feel bad about taking advantage of your classification errors to get myself called "ma'am"?
I really don't get how this analogy is anti-trans. Presumably if someone has transitioned and grown breasts, we should acknowledge that reality and send them emails suggesting they get checked for breast cancer now that they're at risk? And equally, I don't think a trans guy who has had a double mastectomy is at huge risk, here.
Right, but just because someone looks younger than they really are, that doesn't mean that in some ineffable spiritual sense they are younger than their actual physical age. In my experience, most people who undergo extensive cosmetic surgery to try to reverse the effects of aging (the Bogdanoffs, Madonna, Simon Cowell etc.) are widely ridiculed for being in denial about the plain reality of their own bodies. Truth be told, I do think it's rather sad and pathetic seeing someone who refuses to simply accept the fact that they've become older and don't look the same way they used to.
I notice that you completely side-stepped the transracial analogy even though in principle exactly the same arguments should apply.
If a woman of average height started wearing high heels and began claiming to have a "height identity" distinct from her physical height (and complaining that she wasn't being offered basketball scholarships or modelling contracts), I think just about everyone would react with bafflement at best and derision at worst.
I'm not saying you should feel bad about anything. You do you. If it makes you happy to dress in conventionally feminine clothes and have people mistakenly assume that you have a set of reproductive organs which you do not in fact possess, go for it, more power to you. I just reject the claim that, because people sometimes incorrectly classify you into a category of which you are not strictly a member, that therefore means that you really are a member of that category in some kind of spiritual intangible sense. Such a framing would imply that my "ethnic identity" is Finnish in some sense, despite the fact that I have no Finnish ancestry, am not a Finnish citizen, don't speak Finnish or have any connection with the culture, don't know any Finnish people and have never set foot in the country. Like "I'm not a female person, but I look female" is a perfectly coherent statement; likewise "I'm not Finnish but I look like I could be" or "I'm 35 but I look like I'm 25". But statements like "I'm not Finnish, but I have a Finnish ethnic identity" or "I'm 35, but I have a 25-year-old age identity" would widely be derided as incoherent - and I'm arguing the same is true of "I'm not female but I have a female gender identity".
Many trans activists (not necessarily including you, I don't know where you stand on this issue) get very irate and defensive when people make plainly true assertions like "it is impossible for a person to change their sex", "only female people can menstruate or be impregnated" or "trans women are at no less risk of prostate cancer than cis men". My point is, if it's mean to remind people of true facts associated with their anatomical sex instead of constantly affirming their stated "gender identity" (even if the reason you're bringing up these facts is in their own self-interest), then by the same token it should be seen as cruel to remind people about true facts associated with their physical age (such as propensity to various cancers) rather than constantly affirming their "age identity" (i.e. pretending that they really are the age they're attempting to pass themselves off as).
That seems like a pretty dumb mistake to make, though? You know trans people exist. There's plenty of people in the "female gender, but no uterus" category. So why would you keep assuming that just because I have a female presentation, I have a uterus?
Because 99% of people who look female do, in fact, have a uterus, and I'm extremely confident that this is a "mistake" you make all the time when you're out and about. When you pass a woman in the street, you don't think to yourself "oh, there's a person who bears a resemblance to my personal expectation of what a typical female person looks like. Armed with this knowledge, I cannot possibly make any additional inferences or educated guesses about her anatomy or life experience." No - you clock her as female and assume that she is a typical member of that set, rather than fixating on the tiny minority of women without uteruses.
I'd consider it pretty weird to spend any amount of time thinking about whether a stranger has a uterus or not. I've gone this entire conversation without once wondering whether you have a uterus or not. Whether or not you have a uterus is entirely irrelevant to my life.
Whether I have a uterus has zero impact on your life, too - so why are you spending so much time thinking about it?
And, given how often I meet people who look female and don't, in fact, have a uterus, I maintain some basic epistemological grace and acknowledge the uncertainty - especially since in my social circle, it's definitely less than 99%.
I think a lot of cis women would disagree with you on this score. From speaking to my loved ones who are cis women, I understand that they are generally aware of how vulnerable they are to being assaulted (particularly sexually assaulted) and are constantly carrying out risk calculations regarding the people in their immediate vicinity. Male people (not "people who are treated as men" or "people who strangers address as 'sir'" or "people who experience misandrist sexism" - male people) are vastly more likely to assault or rape a female person than female people are, and are overwhelmingly stronger than female people. Thus, to a cis woman, "is the person walking twenty paces behind me male or female?" is a very pertinent question indeed.
"Well yeah because men are socialised to be violent and trans men are just as likely to-" no, I'm gonna stop you right there, it's bollocks. Even males who have undergone SRS retain the offending patterns of their natal sex and are 6 times more likely than cis women to be convicted of a crime (and 18 times more likely to be convicted of a violent crime). This rather succinctly demonstrates how vapid a theory gender ideology is - if trans women are exactly as likely to assault a stranger as cis men, and trans men are exactly as likely to assault a stranger as cis women, knowing a stranger's "gender identity" provides a woman walking down the street with zero actionable information. As soon as she knows their sex, her risk calculation is complete: knowing their gender identity doesn't tell her anything additional which is useful.
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