@Eve the only response to this is your no.1
once we'll all be "beyond gender", then we can talk about pointlessness of the concept. but as long as big majority in society is clueless about anything outside of cis gender binary, these concepts are extremely necessary.
this gender-blindness reminds me of color-blindness - for both phenomena it probably true: it _erases_ all the struggles of those denied the rights of the privileged.
erasure is painful.