It cannot be overstated how much of a boon Discord's lack of friction is for connecting with people and forming communities. It is mind-flatteningly easy to get onto Discord and into a community, and while the content of those communities is woefully unindexed deep web, forever sequestered, the external discoverability of the communities themselves is exceptional.
You will not ever reach the same people with the same ease of use as Discord if you use a hosted alternative.
My first read of this headline had me thinking "that's strange, gendered bathrooms are still pretty normal, they can't possibly have been banned, could they?"
...it hadn't even passed within miles of my mind that this was talking about racial segregation. I can't even comprehend this level of regression.