My original intent was just to be running the site as I would a social space in real life. Most of us can get along with people of whatever sex, whatever orientation, whatever ethnicity, and whatever politics without going off the rails, so why can't it be like that on the internet too? I'm a pretty laid back person who can get along with nearly anyone and who wants to engage with diverse viewpoints.
Regarding trans issues, I recognized that trans people have it really hard in society and I paid extra attention to attempting to shape an environment where they could be comfortable being themselves, since those environments are few and far between. I was happy to see a trans-gaf subcommunity form over time and the community trend toward better understanding of trans issues such that they'd be far more respectful by default than you'd typically see.
That being said, my own views on how an internet forum should be run trend toward not giving a damn what anyone claims to be in terms of identity, just the content of what they have to say and the evidence supporting it. I'm not anonymous, and some other people here aren't, but most personas are formed freely on the internet and when you can become a "protected class" and wield power by announcing that you're a person of color or a woman or trans or whatever it may be, that's going to be taken advantage of on a platform like this. And it was. I never wanted that outcome. I just wanted everyone to be able to come on here and not deal with what I felt was a massive dissonance between how we typically engage with each other on the internet vs how we do IRL.
What the OP describes wasn't really specific to the trans community here. Every identity of person seemed to trend toward hostile tribalism over time, a huge rift formed between community and moderation, individual mods had their own agendas they were furthering, and I failed to course correct it all. Eventually nothing was "progressive enough" and I became the enemy to a subset of the trans community here as well as a subset of every minority community here. I took that all in and tried to navigate it, tried to understand people's positions, but nothing was good enough and a ton of people lashed out at me any time I said anything eventually.
Honestly, I was completely miserable every moment I was on GAF in 2017. I tried to turn things around, but I was dealing with rough personal issues all year and was only just starting to pull myself out of that when I got #metooed (falsely) out of nowhere. It was overwhelming and scary. It got mainstream media attention. The community had become a powderkeg of polarized, authoritarian left hostility that seemed to revel in setting this place on fire from within and throw me onto a pyre the moment they found out about that BS allegation, and almost all the mods immediately bailed, we got DDoSed for like two straight days, and by the time we were back up we barely had any mod coverage and I was deeply hurt by what the community was saying about me and could barely engage with it. Then I had to step back and take care of important personal concerns, so it took some time to figure out where to take the site from there.
Anyway, don't blame the trans community here. Blame me. Everything that happened, at least, eventually became an opportunity to actually course correct this place like I couldn't when it was at its peak, so that we'd be able to actually talk about things again, and use this place for escapism from the shitty real world, too, rather than some insane asylum where you're driven out for "normalizing!!11" if you don't hate everything and want to die.
I think
Rocket Number 22
sets a great example by being willing to talk about her identity and demanding a baseline of respect we all should have for each other, but not constantly relying on "as a trans woman....." at the start of each sentence in an argument. We all have an identity, we all have our struggles, we can all respect each other. Let's do it without creating a swirling miasma of bitter hostility in a game of oppression olympics where there's one correct thing to say and we all hate each other for the privileges we see on the other side of the screen. And let's be cool with our trans gaffers too.
Thanks.