It's a feature, not a bug, at least when they're upfront about it. With non-federated platforms, you're still subject to the domain's lord and master, but you can't pick who that is or maintain access to your communities if you upset them.

While Blahaj isn't the right instance for me, it's no problem that it exists side by side with other instances, and people who want to use social media with no risk of running into things they're already fed up with can have a place for that. If you get banned from somewhere, it's because it wasn't the right fit for you, and nothing's stopping you from finding or making a place that is. It's not like the has to be only one 196, it's just that the one where all the cool people are is the one where everyone agrees to give everyone the benefit of the doubt on all things gender and sexuality.

You act like the majority of us on Blahaj don't agree with these policies. Like it's a dictatorship that we're being subjected to against our will. Queer, and trans, people aren't one homogenous block of opinions, there are going to be plenty of disagreements and that's okay. Blahaj just isn't for them, like Blair White wouldn't fit in either and Blahaj is better off for that.

That's one of the problems with the "I am lord and master of this domain, and all will obey me and my nutty definitions of words like 'transphobia' into some wild alternate reality" model.

Ah yes, defining what is and what isn't transphobic to a bunch of trans people. Always a good look. I look forward to your panel on teaching black people what is and what isn't racist next.

This is literally how Reddit works. There are ground rules that Reddit made, and the mods for each subreddit are free to make their own on top of that and enforce them as they please. If you want some open floor of debate, Twitter is right there. Blahaj was made by trans people, for trans people. You are in our home by our grace, like a straight man at a lesbian bar. You can't be surprised when the owners take umbrage with you repeatedly coming in and trying to debate "what is and isn't homophobic" with the lesbians. And this isn't some crazy demand - it's literally just asking you to call people what they want to be referred to by. I shudder to think how you handle nicknames when Frederick wants to go by Rick instead of Fred. Regardless of how silly you or I may think "drag" is as a pronoun, you still should refer to drag as such because it's simply basic human decency. Respecting people isn't some reward you can dole out to the worthy like a lord in his fiefdom.

And the reason that Lemmy seems so queer-friendly is because of the constant battle of the mods and admins across the instances to keep it that way. There are right-wing chud instances out there that you and I have never seen because the rest of Lemmy refuses to federate with them.

Yeah. The whole thing is stupid. I'm moderately confident that this is either:

1. People ganging up as a very organized effort to try to bully you out of the space as they did FlyingSquid, when you (I think with every righteous reason) decide this bullshit is unpleasant and unfair and you don't feel like putting up with it anymore. I've already semi-abandoned the political spaces on lemmy.world, not even because I was getting bullied with any level of success, but just because the overall flavor of the interaction is so toxic and fact-free.
2. People who are just operating on pure tribalism. It's fine for them to accuse you of all kinds of stuff you objectively didn't do, call you a twat and a loser, all kinds of stuff. It's not fair for you to argue about politics or downvote people, those are evidence of toxicity and sins. Because they're on the "right" team and you're on the "neoliberal enemy" team, so they can do what they want, you can't. Reminiscent of a popular political viewpoint in the US...

Honestly, I wouldn't even stress about it. I get the impulse to try to defend yourself vigorously from this stuff but they're not going to listen to anything sensible anyway, and they'll be able to cherry pick instances of you getting upset to use later as proof that you're some kind of monster. If you want my advice about how to look at it.

t would be fine if you said "He was kind of pushy about trying to make his point and although he clearly wasn't coming from any hostile place,

He was repeatedly and deliberately gatekeeping people's identities. I don't know how to make that any clearer to you.

Whether or not any given person is a troll, it's not an excuse to make people's identities a reward for good behaviour.

If you decide that taking away peoples identities "because they're a troll" is ok, then you're telling the gender diverse people around you that you don't see them for who they are, and that you're just pretending to accept them as long as they behave in ways you find appropriate. Normalising the idea that we can decide other peoples identities is literally the goal of trolls, and so when you see a troll and decide that's a good reason to invalidate people, you're feeding the troll, and hurting the gender diverse folk around you.

I will respect a trolls identity, even as I ban them, because opening the door to deciding which identities are valid does nothing but hurt vulnerable people.

This was all explained to PJ, several times, and he doubled down. And tripled down. Whilst explicitly denying people's identities.

He was coming from a hostile place, and refused to leave it, even when it was explained to him.

I mean... aren't you positioning yourself as the arbiter of other folks' validity and identity?

The fact that you're equating the creation of protective rules in explicitly safe spaces as being morally identical to gatekeeping other folks identities makes me doubt your intentions. If you genuinely believe they're the same thing, you've got a lot of work to do. And if you don't believe they're the same thing, but are comparing them to win an internet discussion, then you're the one stirring up drama...