I remember when Lynn Cyrin and I started toot.cat we were getting a lot of flack for pushing for having a detailed CoC that was inclusive of sex workers, furries, non-english speakers, etc and would not hesitate to tell "free speech" instances to eff-off. It was a change in how instance guidelines and compliance were done, and there was a lot of fear.
Things changed from that (not only or even mainly because of Lynn and I), and that was good.