What does it mean to have a gender identity?

Claims about gender identity are at the core of heated current philosophical and political debates. Yet, it is unclear what it means to have one. I examine several ways of understanding this concept, in light of features that trans writers and activists seem to attribute to it: The concept should, ideally, make good trans people’s claims concerning their own gender identities, the claim that people have privileged access to their gender identities and, possibly the claim that we all have a gender identity. Further, to be helpful with current debates, an account of gender identity should admit that misgendering is a form of serious harm, and that it is permissible for states, and maybe other agents, to require information about people’s gender identities. I conclude that none of the considered accounts meets these criteria, and suggest that we can, and should, pursue the feminist project without it. I also explain why a feminism without gender identity does not exclude trans people and how it is possible to account for the specific harm of misgendering without believing that people have a claim to the recognition of their gender identities. In the absence of a satisfactory answer to the question of gender identity, it is more productive to evaluate each of the trans people’s claims to inclusion into particular spaces separately, based on its individual merits.