Joining the fediverse can be a daunting proposition, and it is understandable that many end up on larger more centralised servers that are easier to find. I have also had some bad experience with smaller servers also. The first one I arrived on was very quiet, almost inactive, and I should have taken that as a warning sign. Later it went down and I had to join another. Unfortunately the next server was mastodon.lol and so within a year I had to deal with the drama of that one shutting down. At least this time I had six months notice to migrate.
But bigger servers have their own pitfalls. It is easy to get lost in them, being disconnected from the admins. Many are poorly moderated and willing to federate with problematic instances that increase your chances of encountering more explicit forms ablism, racism and queerphobia. And in recent weeks we have seen the willingness of these larger servers to connect to a new service made by Meta, Facebooks parent company, with the onslaught of bigotry that will bring.
So whether you are thinking of joining the fediverse, or are already here but thinking of either migrating or forming other accounts, this guide is for you. It is also for you to share to queer friends that want to join.
Feel free to expand on this list with suggestions in replies. I will try and keep it up to date with which instances are open/invite only, if people can help me notice.
Microblogging (Twitter like interfaces)
Mastodon
The most popular microblogging software on the fediverse. Good app support
Currently open to new members
- https://chaos.social (two admins, one a polyam lesbian)
- https://queer.af (run by Erin who helped draft the ActivityPub protocol the fediverse depends on. I think she is a German trans woman? I might be remembering wrong. Will edit if someone clarifies. NOTE: the .af domain is Afganistan, and these domains will no longer be available to register or reregister, so this instance will likely end up with a new domain name in the near future.)
- https://toot.lgbt (run by Julia, a Scottish trans woman)
- https://plush.city (run by nonbinary and pan/bi furries)
- https://anarres.family (run by anarchist trans woman inspired by sci-fi of Ursula le Guin)
- https://girlcock.club (run by trans women for trans people)
- https://eightpoint.app (run by trans bi lesbian)
- https://lgbtqia.space
- https://chaosfem.tw (trans admin)
- https://towns.gay
- https://dragonscave.space (mod team includes admins who are enby, ace, agender, visually impaired)
- https://toot.cat (trans admin)
- https://pagan.plus (its primarilly for pagans, but admin is agender)
- https://tech.lgbt (for lgbt people in tech)
- https://peoplemaking.games (admin is bi and genderfluid, but server is for those involved in making games)
Invite only
You might need to network with admins or users of the following instances to get an invite
- https://weirder.earth (all LGBT admin team that includes nonbinary, bi, aroace, queer, transfemme representation, many also adhd, autistic and one light skinned black)
- https://goblin.camp (admin is pan enby)
- https://queer.group (run by bisexual lesbian and trans lesbian)
- https://queer.party (the admin is a nonbinary, gay, and polyamorous furry)
Sharkey
Can use Mastodon and Misskey apps to connect. I use Milktea (a Misskey app) for mobile notifications, but the generic web interface in the browser is so good I usually go there for interaction.
- https://blahaj.zone (run by the two Australian trans women that also run this server)
- https://transfem.social/ (transfem run instance for transfem individuals and allies)
- https://woem.men (trans catgirl instance with trans moderator)
Akkoma
- https://cooltrans.men (trans masc instance)
Social Networking (Facebook like interfaces)
Friendica
- https://embers.social (run by the two Australian trans women that also run this server)
Forum (Reddit like interfaces)
Lemmy
- https://beehaw.org (large instance, several mods are openly queer)
- https://lemmy.blahaj.zone (this server, run by trans women)
- https://hexbear.net (most mods/admin are LGBTQ+, shows pronouns with usernames)
KBin
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Hexbear as a community has proven recently to be much less friendly than advertised here, months ago.
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Thanks, that is interesting. However since it remains unfederated, I won’t confuse people by putting it in the fediverse guide. I am glad you have included it as a reply though.
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https://towns.gay has served me well, it’s got a focus on urbanism and tbh I find the local feed a little boring sometimes but it isn’t too defed-happy and seems very stable.
chaos.social is invite only
Thanks for the updated. I have edited the post to reflect the latest information.
Found this while sorting by new comments so I may as well throw this in: but there’s https://fedi196.gay when it comes to kbin. Looking through various instance lists it really seems like the only one that has any kind of moderation stance at all (not that it matters considering most of kbin seems to have happily centralized themselves on kbin.social which doesn’t seem to be being moderated effectively (if at all))
The federation between kbin and Lemmy is pretty spotty but it seems to work well enough.
Thanks, have added it. Sorry for delay, had a busy month.
lemmy.blahaj.zone unfortunately federates with lemmygrad.ml, which is a forum that puts gleeful support for the soviet union and the CCP above all other concerns, and accuses you of being brainwashed by the CIA if you take exception to Stalin executing gays. Beehaw.org is kind of a hugbox but they have many openly queer admins/mods and a dedicated LGBT+ community.
lemmygrad.ml self reports as 48% queer. https://lemmygrad.ml/post/723191
It’s beside the point, but I’m not aware of Stalin executing anyone for being gay. I’m definitely not aware of this being done in any significant numbers. Do you have a source? It IS true that he was a raging homophobe, as most people were back then. According to wikipedia, the Soviet Union imprisoned about 800 - 1000 people per year from 1933 - 1953 for the crime of being gay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_Russia
This is fairly comparable to western countries at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_KingdomStill an unfortunate blemish on socialist history. But not one that convinces me that capitalism is the “One true way”. Things are changing, and in my opinion, as well as many others, communism offers the brightest future for us. Cuba is currently leading the way in LGBT rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Cuba
Thanks. I’m sure that is just oversight on the admin here’s part. I’ve seen no indication from either that they are tankie friendly. I’ll let them know. I’ll also add beehaw.org to the list.
@[email protected] It wasn’t an oversight as such, more that I am naïve to the politics involved. In my mind, as long as they weren’t attacking queer rights, then it wasn’t a priority for me.
However, prompted by several requests, I’ve done a bit of a deep dive to bring myself up to speed, and have made the choice to defederate lemmygrad.
@ada @[email protected] (Replying with Calckey account because Lemmy seems to have a bug where it won’t successfully reply to a reply left with Calckey, it just spins forever) You have my sympathies, had a bit of a deep dive myself.
Was this decision reversed recently? I’m noticing a ton of lemmygrad stuff in my feed now.
@[email protected] Oops, that was my fault. I’ll fix it up again
You may also want to look into hexbear which recently started federating. Big lemmygrad vibes coming over from there as well.
Good call!
Check out the Anti-META Fedi Pact. There are already lots of instances on the list. Beehaw has made a post proving that they have signed it, but the site has not updated to add them to the list yet. Note that being on the list does not necessarily mean that an instance is LGBTQ+ friendly, so make sure to verify for yourself.
@toni This is a bit outdated.
Doesn’t include chaosfem.tw or toot.cat off top of head, eightpoint is defederated by most of the other servers.
It already does include chaosfem.tw. Never heard of toot.cat, so adding now. I was aware that eightpoint and tech.lgbt defedded over something, but not any others. My instance still federates with eightpoint and I still have friends there. Everyone there seems chill so it seems a bit odd.
toot.cat’s a great site, I’ve had an account there since 2017, and it’s very queer-friendly. I don’t know whether the current admin has stated their gender so you might want to check on that.
With eightpoint, quite a few sites defederated late last year because of information that one of their moderators was actually somebody who is widely seen as a serial abuser, has a reputation for inflitrating and wrecking radical left spaces, and has in the past cooperated with the FBI … but was using a different name on eightpoint (as they have multiple times in the past). Of course in a situation like this, everybody makes up their own minds about how believable the information is; for what it’s worth, I found it quite convincing. Anyhow, eightpoint’s admin initially strongly backed the moderator, and accusations of bad faith went in both directions. The moderator stepped down and left but it’s hard to recover trust after a situation like that.
EDIT: @[email protected] gave the abuser’s name elsewhere in the thread.
Since the abuser is no longer there, and there is no problems with abusive behaviour or rules from that instance, continued defederation seems a bit strong, especially when there are far worse instances everyone is still federated with (stux, gargamel, and all the meta ‘wait and see’ sell outs etc). At this point it seems that it is just a grudge and bad blood between instance admins, and it is users that suffer the consequences.
Agreed that there are plenty of problematic instances led by cis people that everybody federates with, including mastodon.social. For eightpoint, I don’t know how many instances have and haven’t refederated … for that matter I don’t even know how many defederated originally. Some instances see it the way you do: the abuser’s gone, so as long as there’s no continued problems, refederating makes sense. Those who are still defederated probably see it as a question of ongoing safety: the admin mistakenly trusted and gave power to an abuser, and then defended them, so they’re likely to make similar mistakes in the future. It’s a matter both of moderation philosophy and reactions to the specifics of this situation.
@toni It’s because of Laurelai Bailey, who has been accused of doing a lot of really bad shit.
This is why many of the other trans instances defederate from eightpoint.
@[email protected] Does anyone have a list of matrix home servers & communities? #linuxgaming #nonbinay #trans #linux
@emi @[email protected] I’m still a bit confused about Matrix. Not sure I understand correctly, but I think for your messages to be properly secure you have to run your own matrix server at home. Open servers are more for testing it out?
All depends on your definition of “properly secure”. As far as I know, most users do not host their own server
