Bunnings stores have a bunch of free boxes near the checkouts. They do have a 2 box per person limit though so you might need to make a couple trips or have some friends.
Alternatively, most bottleshops should have a ton of small but strong boxes available.
Id consider most of these examples you’ve provided to just be playful banter. Lemmy is a social network and you shouldn’t expect every interaction to be completely serious all the time. Besides, one aspect of Australian culture is “bants with mates at the pub” and none of the things posted by HB users in this thread, or any other thread I’ve seen for that matter, come close to some of the horrid stuff I’ve heard be excused as “they’re just joking around” IRL.
Why do you think that including one’s pronouns in a username or bio is transphobic? Or do you take issue with a particular user’s pronouns?
Finally, regarding your point about not being familiar with Beehaw, I’d point you to my first point about banter but also to the fact that Hexbear is a very large and old instance; up untill a couple of months ago they were running a version of Lemmy that did not support federation. The fediverse is diverse enough that unless you’re on an instance federated with Beehaw or engross yourself in a meta thread about it, some of the confusion may be legitimate.