There’s a vitally important discussion to be had about gender ideology — about what a man is, and what a woman is, and what they aren’t, and why they shouldn’t be what they aren’t. Sadly, though, the world’s most powerful and influential social media platforms are too cowardly to facilitate this discussion.

We’re speaking about Twitter, mostly, which further disgraced itself recently by suspending Canadian author, clinical psychologist, and philosopher Jordan Peterson for having “misgendered” a “transgender” Canadian actress formerly named Ellen Page but now named Elliot Page.

The tweet that got Peterson suspended? This: “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”

That’s a hard-hitting piece of commentary, to be sure. But of all the filth and violence and vulgarity that Twitter allows on its platform, this is what it chooses to silence?

So much for “tolerance.” Peterson is trying to raise awareness of a condition that’s plaguing Western culture. He’s trying to keep certain of his fellow humans from irrevocably mutilating themselves. And Twitter silences him for it.

Elon Musk can’t get here soon enough.

Peterson’s daughter Mikhaila captured the incident in a tweet of her own: “Wow. Jordan Peterson got a twitter strike. No more twitter until he deletes the tweet. Definitely not a free speech platform at the moment.”

Twitter helpfully informed Peterson that his comments violated the company’s rule against hateful conduct, which prohibits users from “promoting violence” against other people for, among other things, “gender identity.” But where’s the violence? We sense some pity toward Page, and some righteous outrage directed toward the butcher who cut her breasts off, but violence?

Peterson himself walked through the ridiculousness of it all in an outstanding video.

In addition to having the courage of his convictions, Peterson has been prescient. As The Daily Caller reports, he warned us back in 2017 about the criminalization of those who refuse to use a transgender person’s preferred pronouns.

As for his suspension, he put it this way to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, but he might just as easily have been putting it to the speech-suppressing commissars at Twitter and all across Big Tech:

This is what happened because I said what I had to say as clearly as I could say it. … You know, our culture is predicated on the idea that truth in speech is of divine significance. It’s the fundamental presupposition of our culture. If you believe that, then you act it out. You take the consequences. You’re gonna take the consequences one way or another. So, do you want the truth on your side, or do you want to hide behind falsehood?

Peterson isn’t alone, though. The Daily Signal lists 12 others who’ve suffered the same truth-telling fate — among them Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Indiana Congressman Jim Banks, pundits Matt Walsh and Charlie Kirk, and the Babylon Bee’s Seth Dillon.

Also joining that group is Dave Rubin, a recently converted conservative pundit who was suspended for commenting on Peterson’s suspension. “I have been suspended by Twitter for posting a screenshot of Jordan Peterson’s tweet which got he himself suspended,” Rubin wrote.

Perhaps everyone with a Twitter account and a fair mind ought to follow Rubin’s lead.