There's something deeply weird about the depth of intolerance that has been provoked by Barry Humphries saying, after similar comments by Germaine Greer, that transgender person Caitlyn Jenner was "a mutilated man, that's all". You don't have to agree with the sentiment to think the reaction violates something that should perhaps be even more sacred to us than the sensitivities of minorities: the right to free speech.

And yet we have transgender actress Rebecca Root, from the BBC sitcom Boy Meets Girl, say that if Humphries doesn't apologise he should lose his BBC Radio 2 program, Barry's Forgotten Musical Masterpieces.

Germaine Greer caused controversy by arguing trans women are "not real women".

Isn't this just a bit wacko, as well as dangerous? Of course it's not hard to see that transgender people and their loved ones could take offence when Greer says, "Just because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn't make you a f---ing woman", or when Humphries says Jenner is "a publicity-seeking ratbag". But don't they have a right to be offensive?

Greer had a hell of an impact on the world when she wrote The Female Eunuch and its successors, and Humphries is the greatest comedian in Australian history. The right to offend was intrinsic to their respective achievements, and it's difficult not to see each of them, despite their respective politics – she's a woman of the left, he's a conservative – as people who, in William Butler Yeats' phrase, "served human liberty".