Of course there's another way to interpret it: exactly as stated, which is a desire to avoid the connotation that the assignment is arbitrary which it almost always is not.

People can actually care about connotations.

For instance, there's nothing necessarily inaccurate about the term "transgenderism", but the connotation is wrong, because many (not all) -isms are (at least nominally) volitional choices.

So it's a reasonable position that "transgenderism" as a term is not a helpful or accurate way to characterize much of anything to do with trans people or their rights, outlooks, aspirations, or anything else.

But if we grant that those connotations can matter, we must also grant that AFAB/AMAB connotations may matter.

At the very least, you need a better argument than you've given to not take people at their word. If you won't take people at their word by default, why should anyone take you at your word that you don't, for instance, want to erase the biological definition of sex?