The Family Policy Institute of Washington‘s Joseph Backholm visited the University of Washington campus in Seattle (note the lovely cherry blossoms in the background) to find out how far acceptance of someone’s self-identity goes.

Pretty far, it turns out.

Students, confused at first with why this thirtysomething white guy would tell them he’s Chinese, a woman, seven years old, or 6-foot-5, hem and haw before admitting that “if you truly believe that … I wouldn’t say you’re wrong.”

As Backholm suggests, the incoherence of these students’ views shows the lack of common sense and the intellectual poverty of our conversations around identity. Are there limits to what someone can self-identify as? The Rachel Dolezal backlash seems to imply as much. It’s interesting to note that for some of these students, the breaking point of the argument came with Backholm’s height — something so obvious they could not ignore it, though they had no problem ignoring his age, sex and ethnicity.