A student who witnessed the incident tells me this anecdote about another course he is taking.

One of his classmates was finding it difficult to accept his professor’s line that people are whatever they “identify” as being.  The classmate asked, “So if someone decides he’s a refrigerator, then he’s a refrigerator?”

A “woke” student retorted, "It wouldn't be like that.  He would have been a refrigerator from birth."