Emotional labor is a thing. As someone who both prefers direct communication and (thinks that he) can relate to what other people feel, I'm always facing a choice between spending some emotional effort to be "nicer" or having my counterparty deal with it. I tend to choose the former and it does feel like labor.
Absence of barriers is also not the same as making one feel welcome. But I feel the KCG are actually a step in the right direction in this regard; and since it doesn't alienate as much of the anti-CoC crowd, it seems foolish to battle it.
You may be right that I'm being harsh, at the same time, I don't see this the KGC as a neutral thing. It says "Here is the line", but sets that line very far from aspirational. If anything, it seems designed to address how people are to interpret his comments.
We can (and need to) do better.
Emotional labor? Give me a break.
Being inclusive does not require anything more than the absence of barriers. What does the author mean specifically when they advise that we alter our approach to match the cultural norms of other groups? My "approach" in writing online is to talk to a person, not specifically a male or a white person or whatever distinction you care to name. The internet has always been great that way. No matter who you are in real life, in IRC you're just a nick, and on mailing lists you're just an email address. That's what drew many of us to it in the first place. It seems bizarre to now claim that in fact the opposite is true.