I just want to re-iterate our most recent rule change, which is that drive-by, unprovoked attacks targeted at people on other servers is no longer allowed. This is a rule that keeps us federated with multiple servers.
You can still have cross-server conversations and express opinions about just about anything you want, but what I am trying to prevent is antisocial behavior like jumping into random threads to tell people they're a f*ggot, or not a woman, etc. It's not about those specific examples being banned, it the general idea of not being intentionally hurtful to people that didn't ask for that interaction, and not sowing inter-server discord that causes me problems.
Again, to use the transgender issue as an example: you can have any opinion you want, you can talk about it, you can't jump into a thread to call someone slurs. If a server defederates with us because we have "transphobic" users nobody here has to change behavior. It is about not being a source of attacks at other servers.
I have been guilty of this in the past more than once. I am holding myself accountable to this standard, not just my users.
I don't like adding rules but I felt this one was needed. I'm not bringing it up to rake the few users who used to do this over the coals--everyone whom I asked to stop willingly complied. I'm just giving a reminder to everyone for the future.