Everyone talks about it like it was a big one, but the subreddit was home to so many different nominally leftist tendencies and a lot of the more reactionary elements needed to be purged before this community could become what it is now. Can you imagine this place if it were full of bad faith devil’s advocates in every thread about trans issues?

So that’s why I view that struggle session as necessary. It served as a honeypot that lured all of the most bigoted users into exposing themselves at once. It’s also a moment in our history that we can point to and say that this issue has already been definitively decided. We support trans people here, end of story, and anyone who doesn’t like it can eat a quick ban without a second thought. On any other forum you’d get endless relitigation and cliques arguing that their buddy’s ban was undeserved, but here? Crab party, baby. No drama, no arguing - just crabs.

In an ideal world yeah. The silver lining is that it purged a bunch of terfs and people with hidden chud tendencies so we’re probably better off for it.