I think trust and identity are fundamentally intertwined, for sure. I think it's also why trust can be easily gamed by posing as certain identity groups. It's a dark path taken to the extreme.

I just read supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg and one of the best take aways from it was to remind people that they have multiple identities that they hold dear, and some of them may be in conflict. It gets people to think more and not regress to knee-jerk beliefs they think they're supposed to hold based on their identity on a given topic.

Pseudonyms are anonymous yet can still build trust. I appreciate anonymity when I want to talk about sensitive topics.

If I can build reputation somewhere, I'm going to use the same account, but that account may not have my real name. Reputation incentivizes identity, but not necessarily association to a real identity.