There's a post explaining it somewhere, but IIRC, the reasoning is that due to the population and purpose of creating the instance in the first place, it's to help protect people from brigading and the like.
Personally, it's the only thing I don't like about having an account here. The idea behind the choice is solid, but it does make it difficult to actually know what people think of a comment or post.
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.