Mark Lance: Transgenderism Cannot Be Questioned

I already did a drive-by on this post, "Taking Trans Lives Seriously," but didn't realize that it was written by a philosopher.
   That's an embarrassment to the discipline. It's not only filled with bad arguments, its main purpose is to stifle inquiry. This is prope-Lysenkoism--the heart of political correctness: any criticism of the left is impermissible. It's not alleged to be merely incorrect, but morally wrong to honestly inquire into the view.
   Transgenderism is the element of neo-PC that's most frequently and vociferously defended with arguments against the very permissibility of inquiry. And that's because the arguments in favor of it are so weak, and the arguments against it are so clearly decisive. Lance deploys some embarrassing sophistries--e.g. suggesting that such inquiry is a "parlor game," and that those critical of transgender mythology are, by the very act of discussing it rationally, perpetrating harm against allegedly vulnerable people.
   I've discussed all that nonsense before. There's nothing new in Lance's piece.
   Sadly, philosophy continues to humiliate itself with respect to this issue. This is a view that any decent graduate student should be able to shred without breaking a sweat. Philosophers should have shot this nonsense down immediately. Instead many of them are promoting it, and the rest are cowering in the corner, terrified of the PC left. Which, granted, will do what it can to ruin your life if you cross it--these are dangerous people with a dangerously anti-liberal, anti-rationalist view. Which makes it even more important to stand up to them.