Do you think Homophobes are "afraid" of gay people?

Yes.

What abiut transphobes?

Also yes.

In the context of bigotry, phobia is used to refer to invalidating or undermining ones sexuality, gender identity, etc.

That is the outcome of the irrational fear people feel towards those people.

Someone attracted to trans people because they are trans would be transphilic, not transphobic.

What do you think the word "phobia" means, just out of interest?

That is seriously cool actually, I knew they spent a long time in the air, but it's a different story to actually see it in action.

Amazing video actually.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phobia

It doesn't sound like they're afraid to me?

They're arguing that being sexually attracted to something is a phobia, the definition of which is having an irrational fear of something.

Do you really think this person has the ability to string enough words together to justify their opinion?

It sounds like the polar opposite to me.

He had dirt on a lot of powerful people, and the circumstances around his death were extremely suspicious.

My understanding is they use an off the shelf model, because they can buy a replacement pretty much anywhere.

It's a bit more mask on, and there's a few legit communities there, as opposed to Hexbear where the entire instance has a stated goal.

But it's pretty bad.

You guys are pretty proactive about blocking and defederating bad faith instances, or even ones not doing enough to deal with bad actors. You were one of the first to defederate Hexbear, and I think you even defederated world at one point?

Oh, hey Dave. Small world huh?

They've chosen a very confrontational path with the way their instance interacts with others, and as a result they get a lot of push back, which just makes them angrier. I suspect anyone trying to be reasonable on the instance gets accused of not being a true believer as well, so only the angriest remain.

Also, Boost for Lemmy allows you to block an entire instance, it's pretty handy.