Niche is working. Not everything has to be market dominating
I'm sorry but this is one of the more terrible takes I've seen people barf out on lemmy an the fediverse as a whole, the idea that "gRoWTh iSN't iMPoRtaNt bECaUse LEmmY isN't a cOMpAnY". The fact is this is a stupid argument because being niche hurts a social media platform's ability to be a social media, it hinders the amount of interaction you can get, and it stifles more niche communities to the point they can't even get off the ground at all.
This whole thing about growth not being important is one of those Fediverse talking points that needs to be shot dead right here, right now.
Gatekeeping platforms and trying to keep out the "laugh and upvote" crowd is not helping anyone, it's hurting this platform, because people not getting interaction on their posts, or their communities being dead in the water because not enough if any people here are interested really kills motivation, and is likely part of the reason we saw a dip in Lemmy activity after the initial Reddit API exodus. Why do you want to gatekeep these people so much anyway? Most of them are only going to laugh, upvote, and consume content here, chances are you won't directly see most of them. Yet they are one of the more important parts of a social media platform since they give it life and energy and activity, that just wouldn't be anywhere near the same without them.
I think this person is either a troll or doesn't understand the nature of these situations because Leni is, in her own words "a non-transgender woman" and also is not being slandered but has actually engaged in bad faith interactions like Nazi apologia, and literal transphobia herself.
Dragonfucker is a weird and uncomfortable situation because people were and still are misgendering them (including ironically OOP) but dragonfucker was not ejected from many Lemmy instances and communities because of their pronouns but because of misgendering, sealioning, and literal harassment of users of users.
Looking at it more I really don't think this person is acting in good faith at all, since they chose the worst people to represent in their arguments. I absolutely do think that Lemmy, especially on bigger instances or ones with more agnostic moderation, have problems with transphobia and bigotry as a whole (especially of the thinly veiled variety). But I would never suggest that two of the most prolific trolls on this platform are innocent victims.