Ah. Yes, things changed a lot over the next couple decades. The last anti-idpole people were just being purged right as I became aware of goings-on in the community. I'm glad it went that way instead of the other, and people of all sorts were in the room, but in the end the exact extent of acceptance became a new thing to fight over. Is furry stuff a fetish or a type of queer identity? Is vegetarianism anti-indigenous? Are poor, conservative white people potential converts, or something like Marx's "petty bourgeoisie"? What about, like, Hindu traditionalists? These would all be good things to hash out, but polite debate is not valued.

Man, I wish Lemmy had a follow user feature. It sounds like you went through some of the same stuff I did but in gen X times.

Also, heads up that this instance is run by the Lemmy developers, who happen to be very active members of the far left. They can be ban-happy sometimes.