It looks more like the dev felt the PR being introduced was purely for political reasons, which he disliked. I’m not saying I agree with the dev, but you’ve stated he “had a public freakout over the idea that women exist” and that doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Consider that claims like yours, and the responses to his rejection of the PR, probably only strengthened his belief of the PR’s intent.
Crazy to see this in my feed, I was just thinking about this the other day. I didn’t steal the balls, but I remember figuring out that I could remove them and clean the crud off of the rolling components inside to smooth my cursor movement. (This would have been 3rd or 4th grade.)