Men and women/LGBTQ people are so different as fans of a genre/IP IMO. Men tend to feel ownership as fans and if they do join fan communities they're VERY competitive about trivia/collecting. Women/minorities like building onto Canon lore with art/writing and sharing new ideas with fandom at large.
That is not to say men never write fanfic and women/minority fans don't have massive merch collections. It's more that men can accept media as is much of the time and feel protective of it while women/minorities are accustomed to adapt/add on/evolve media to better reflect them and their desires.
It's a huge part of why we're where we are now. The (especially older) men feel their natural ownership and default position in media is slipping but don't have the same creative capacity to deal with it maturely, so they lash out at the threat. The woke mob "taking" from them and changing tradition
Many Women/minority fans on the other hand can be huge fans of a show but also conceptualize 800 versions with endings they like better. There can be a specifically catered coffeeshop AU's where all the characters are dogs and it can exist and be enjoyed without diminishing the original.
Male fans might not be able to accept that their favorite shows/films can be expanded or even improved upon but enjoy SCPS or Warhammer fan content without realizing that's the same thing. In the future I hope deathing the author becomes a more widely accepted thing. Fandom is not a contest
Fandom must embrace canon nihilism in order to free itself of it's worst tendencies and attitudes.
Alot of works have it built in, as you said, but the worst actors are slow to catch on that fiction is fiction, regardless of how much it personally means to them.
Someone else pointed out that the worst members of fandom have right-wing leanings, and that's not a coincidence.
It's a whole power and control thing for them, whether they're self aware or not.
The more communities counter that mindset, the healthier they become.
