[grannyg00se]

"you're a man, and therefore likely to discriminate against and marginalize me and therefore I cannot have you on my mailing list"

I think you're still too focused on the individual level here. It's not meant as a personal rejection. It's more like "We are a minority and need a place to get away from all of that sometimes".

Try to think of it as getting away from the troubles and stress that come with being a minority in the environment, rather than a way to get away from specific people.

And that is why a male only hacker group (for example) wouldn't look good. There would be no minority environment to try to get away from. The group would be excluding females simply because they are females. In order to be less offensive, there must be some other reason for the exclusion. A mailing list that only allows men suffering from erectile dysfunction probably wouldn't raise too much scorn from anybody.

So for any minority-only group, the trick is to accept that there are legitimate difficulties inherent with being part of that minority. Sometimes it takes effort to see things that way, especially if you are supposed to be part of the majority and see no benefit from it.

[tiredofcareer]

The parallels to sexism in your comment are striking and serve to confirm my point, in a way.