at the time the decision was made, the site hadn't yet taken a zero tolerance policy about transphobia - this was 3 years ago. so we weren't sure the bans would actually happen. a few months later, the fact that pronoun tags were mandatory got relitigated so often that trans users started leaving, including one of the admins of the site. they convinced her to stay and had a come to jesus moment and they immediately took a hardline stance against bigotry. the decision not to put in an open field was never relitigated because it was such a tumultuous time for the community - for the longest time, no one wanted to reopen those wounds.

I should also say that since then hexbear has become the most trans-supportive space, that's not exclusively for trans people, that I've ever been in. and the fact that pronoun tags makes every reactionary froth at the mouth has been a boon for making sure reactionaries can't hide amongst the userbase for very long before they out themselves involuntarily.