is there a summary of events that occurred? There's lots of confusing accounts and it's impossible to piece together the facts.
Stack Exchange is perceived by many people to be unwelcoming. There has been persistent concern that SE is even more unwelcoming to people with protected characteristics.
SE have made considerable effort to fix this.
Recently they've been looking at codes of conduct.
The most recent version of this includes a request, or maybe a requirement, to use a person's preferred pronouns.
Some people refuse to do this because God tells them it's wrong to do so. Other people refuse to do this because, well, I dunno I've never understood why calling someone "he" instead of "she" is such a burden.
Stack Exchange is telling those people that their refusal to use a preferred pronoun is not compatible with being a moderator at SE, and so they removed one mod.
She posted her version of events to one of the SE sites, and this caused a bunch of other mods to "resign" their posts in support of her.
EDIT: I've tried to word this as neutrally as I can.
To respond to a couple of comments: Bob says "please use 'he' when talking about me, and Ann says "No, I can't do that because God tells me it's wrong. I'll use 'them' instead." -- I don't see how this can be anything other than Ann refusing to use Bob's choice of pronouns. Note that I haven't used the word "misgendering".
Citation needed.
That's not true. She was removed for asking whether, after the not-yet-current CoC was made official (which asks to use preferred pronouns) it would be allowed to use third person pronouns to circumvent the issue. Neither was preferred pronoun-usage a rule, nor had she disobeyed that rule (yet).
If someone has explicitly asked you to use "she/her", and you exclusively use "they/them", you are still not using that person's preferred pronouns.
No comparison is perfect, but it feels similar to me asking a cop whether it's going to be illegal to do X under the new law that is being discussed, and them arresting and charging me for doing X. Neither is X currently outlawed, nor have I committed X, I have merely inquired about the legality of X.
They claim she repeatedly refused to change CoC violations, she claims she was just asking about using gender neutral language.
It seems to me that there were likely several misunderstandings that lead to increasingly heated discussion and then the SE staff decided to remove a moderator without following their own established process for doing so.
Misunderstandings have been suggested by the fired moderator as well, with a plea to talk to her. According to her, they haven't been taking her calls and not replied to emails. That's consistent with their public stance, so it seems plausible to me.
My pet theory: it's a "punish one, educate a hundred" move. They chose a respected moderator for a laughable offense to send a clear signal that they won't allow any amount of violation of their new rules and that reputation and contributions do not protect you. Question authority and you're gone, no matter who you are. That this comes a month after the new CEO makes me believe it's the shift to a new policy, one that runs the site not as a community, but as a product to sell to other corporations.
Most people understand that using "they/their" is a good default when you're talking about a specific person who you happen to not know the gender of. People get that using "they" isn't necessarily an attack, but if you for example do it in response to a message where their gender is made apparent, or if you only do it when talking about trans people, then it quickly starts looking rude.
Also: They misgendered her in the "apology".
More relevant to the subject matter, your confident assertion, speaking for everyone, belies a lack of empathy. Finally, I find it interesting that none of this would have been confusing or even ambiguous except that we're using written language to communicate.
Have a nice day!
What did you think the moderators signed? What did you think they had re-signed?
All of which underscores the point of my original (and annoyingly if predictably downvoted) comment about there being ambiguous -- hence ironic -- use of a particular homograph.
Somebody recently referred me to this nonsense: https://www.mypronouns.org/how
It's funny that this pronoun debate in the US is so anglocentric, too. Just shows the level of critical thinking these agenda pushers really have. Why? Why is it only the 3rd person pronouns that are special. Why are 1st and 2nd person "as-is"?