Late summer and early fall clearly aren’t Matt Damon’s seasons. How else to describe the actor-producer’s two-pronged tussle with the thought police over his recent comments about diversity and sexuality within the entertainment industry.

Two weeks ago, Damon was forced to apologize after repeatedly interrupting black female producer Effie Brown during a heated discussion on diversity in cinema on his television show “Project Greenlight.”

And this week, Damon has come under fire for supposedly discouraging gay actors from coming out of the closet.

As in most cases where media and minority status collide, the truth is far more complex. As he explained on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” today, Damon wasn’t telling gay actors to hide their sexuality, but merely suggesting that a bit of Tinseltown mystique can actually boost a talent’s appeal and longevity. “I was just trying to say actors are more effective when they’re a mystery,” he says.

As for the “Project Greenlight” situation, it appears social media was far more offended than Brown herself. (She retorted with an incredulous “OK . . . wow.”)

Twitter, however, quickly served Damon a personalized hashtag, #mattsplaining — a snide take on the high-jargon #whitesplaining and #mansplaining tags currently overpopulating the Twittersphere.

With his Oscar, product endorsements and multimillion-dollar paychecks, it’s hard to feel sorry for Damon. But I can offer him a whole-hearted “Geez!” After all, at a time when progressives demand “open,” “honest” and “authentic” conversations about race and class and sexuality, Damon is taking on these issues in “open” and “authentic” ways in some of the media’s highest-profile forums.

Damon certainly isn’t shying away from potentially problematic topics — he just isn’t delivering them in the scripted and contrived ways the “Gotcha!” crowd demands. And as a result, he’s become an easy target for the irate blogger brigade ready to pounce at even the most minor offense.

Unlike pal Ben Affleck — who ludicrously tried to redact his family’s slave-owning history from PBS’s “Finding Your Roots” — Damon hardly has a history of progressive pitfalls. If anything, Damon has historically — and rightfully — been considered one of Hollywood’s “good guys”: no high-profile arrests, no string of mistresses — only an early-career public dumping of Minnie Driver to tarnish his wholesome image.

Yet he now finds himself in hot seat after hot seat for trying to be, well, himself — for daring, perhaps, to challenge a black cast member just as he might a white one — or for speaking about sexuality with the frankness shown with any other personal or professional attribute. Sadly, if anything, Damon’s debacles subtly suggest that any attempt by whites or men — and especially white men — to broach the race or gender divide is ultimately fated to be a lose-lose venture.

Of course, as long as his box office numbers stay strong, Damon really isn’t losing much of anything. He will still continue to secure plum roles, grace red carpets and do his small-screen thing on “Project Greenlight.” The real losers will be the general public, who will be denied further Damon-style conversations as star after star shies away from even the most mildly complex confrontations.

The left constantly bemoans the Kardashianization of mass media — but what else to expect from a culture in which selfies and man-buns are the only subjects not yet branded “microaggressions”?

As topics like Ferguson, same-sex marriage and even Caitlyn Jenner illustrate, race, class and equality are complicated and layered — and often quite messy. And, at times, they can even be offensive.

But the key to navigating these issues is the very openness and honesty and authenticity that the left so vocally demands — openly and honestly and authentically separating mere verbal faux pas from actually intended offensiveness. Damon clearly employed the former.