It seems that the issue was resolved behind closed doors, so it could have been resolved behind closed doors to begin with, and then if the defederation was to go ahead simply announce the defederation.
Making an announcement "it will be defederated in 48 hours" made for this weird countdown drama thread (we even had programming.dev people show up and be sad about defederation!) that didn't really go anywhere, and then y'all just locked it when we refederated and made it clear that you were never interested in input and you'll be running the instance as you please (which is well within your rights of course). So what was the point of the thread?
I can see how it is nice to have warning if a community you're involved in is going to be defederated, but it also drags drama to our nice little corner of the fediverse, and pins it at the top of our feeds for all to see. In fact it shows up as the top of every feed for me, Local, All, and Subscribed. I can't get away from it.
Every time these threads show up they end up blowing up. Honestly, if you didn't make these threads, I wouldn't care who you defederate. But because the thread exists, I have to come in and I have to have an opinion. That's a personal issue and I recognize that, but I would hazard a guess that I'm not the only one. People who have never interacted with Blahaj nor the instance getting defederated show up in these threads sometimes. These threads invite drama, and for me personally, whenever they come up they make this space feel significantly less safe and make me want to leave Lemmy as a whole because it feels like it's just nonstop defederation drama for days at a time, but it's pinned at the top of my feed.
Maybe these threads actually provide utility, and I should just take these threads as a sign I should take a break from the Internet for a bit. But to me, they just seem like they're all downsides.
I think defederation threads in general provide utility in the form of transparency and the possibility of feedback. I did not get the sense that there was no interest in input. Hopefully we could try the suggestion from Ategon so that other instances do not see similar posts in the future.
I don't enjoy drama either. The drama infects everything and makes it difficult to have any conversation about the topic at all. There was a good faith discussion on the topic to be had and everyone in the thread made a solid effort to discuss it. It seems like most people got what they wanted as we did not defederate. To be clear, I am happy with this result as well.
I could be wrong, but I thought the intention of the 48 hours was to make it clear that the process would be concise and not dragged out. I think framing the post that way did not have the desired effect, for the reasons that you have listed. Mainly it created a countdown drama. The original post from programming.dev had its own share of drama as well which got carried over into the meta thread to a certain degree and again made the discussion harder than it should have been.
I think there is tension between wanting to create a safe place for trans people, as this is the stated goal of the instance, and wanting to be connected to the larger social media community, as that is part of the fun of a social media platform. As far as I can tell, Beehaw solves this problem by preemptively defederating with most of the Fediverse. This at least avoids all of the drama which is good, but then they are a more isolated instance. Hexbear seems to revel in being problematic for the sake of virtue signaling. I like that Blåhaj has not gone in either of those directions. In fact I think Blåhaj is striking the correct balance for moderation.
The federated nature of lemmy means we need to moderate against transphobia on an instance by instance basis. I think if the mods and admins here continue to be receptive to discussion then in the long run this community will continue to have positive interactions with the majority of lemmy instances. I think the nature of this continual process is not what most people expected from the Fediverse. I recall most people assuming things would settle down after an initial period of defederation. The fact is we are a part of a marginalized minority group which means there is more effort required to make this space happen than a space of similar size that benefits from heteronormative and cis privilege. Communication takes time and energy which our team of mods and admins have to provide for free. The process takes work, but I think the end result is worth it.
What I am hoping is that we will be able to learn from these early experiences and make the process as smooth as humanly possible. I don't believe it will be completely without bumps. Hopefully future defederation threads will minimize drama and maximize efficient and fruitful discourse. edit: typos