We have only two sources of ideas: experience and imagination. As Kierkegaard wrote, one does not know what it is to have your father die until you have experienced. Yes, you can imagine it, but you have to live it to truly know it. Similarly, I did not know what it is like to live in a foreign country until I did.

Philosophers who are worth anything understand this basic human condition and account for it. By "lived experience" in the context of the article, we trust the experience of people who have lived as nonheteronormative people. We listen to them and respect them. We don't tell them what they are; we don't pretend we know more in our imagination than they they do in their lived experience. That's good science, good philosophy, and just plain basic human decency.