No, it does not remove Gnome. Gnome remains as a Desktop Environment that you can log into and use as you wish or need. In fact... It has been a great help to me still having it readily available for testing and checking things for questions on this forum. I used to have to either pass the buck on Gnome Questions or load up a USB instance of Zorin Core to test or examine Gnome questions.
I have decided to not install Zorin OS Lite when it is released and stick with Z16 BETA, using XFCE or Cinnamon on it for my own personal use.
While having Gnome does take up a small amount of file space, it does not make the use of Zorin OS 16 BETA with XFCE4 heavier in any way, since it is not being actively run and used.