diff --git a/federation/hostmeta/generators.py b/federation/hostmeta/generators.py
index cfbf47b..621546c 100644
--- a/federation/hostmeta/generators.py
+++ b/federation/hostmeta/generators.py
@@ -23,16 +23,12 @@ class BaseHostMeta(object):
         self.xrd = XRD()
 
     def render(self):
-        return self.xrd.to_xml()
+        return self.xrd.to_xml().toprettyxml(indent="  ", encoding="UTF-8")
 
 
 class DiasporaHostMeta(BaseHostMeta):
     """Diaspora host-meta.
 
-    NOTE! Diaspora .well-known/host-meta seems to define 'encoding="UTF-8"' from server implementation.
-    The xrd.XRD module does not define this or allow defining it when rendering the XML. This will need to be
-    fixed if that is a problem to Diaspora or other servers.
-
     Requires keyword args:
         webfinger_host (str)
     """
diff --git a/federation/tests/hostmeta/test_generators.py b/federation/tests/hostmeta/test_generators.py
index d062840..f0e654f 100644
--- a/federation/tests/hostmeta/test_generators.py
+++ b/federation/tests/hostmeta/test_generators.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ import pytest
 from federation.hostmeta.generators import generate_host_meta
 
 
-DIASPORA_HOSTMETA = """<?xml version="1.0" ?>
+DIASPORA_HOSTMETA = """<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <XRD xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/ns/xri/xrd-1.0">
   <Link rel="lrdd" template="https://example.com/webfinger?q={uri}" type="application/xrd+xml"/>
 </XRD>
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ class TestDiasporaHostMetaGenerator(object):
 
     def test_generate_valid_host_meta(self):
         hostmeta = generate_host_meta("diaspora", webfinger_host="https://example.com")
-        assert hostmeta.toprettyxml(indent="  ") == DIASPORA_HOSTMETA
+        assert hostmeta.decode("UTF-8") == DIASPORA_HOSTMETA
 
     def test_generate_host_meta_requires_webfinger_host(self):
         with pytest.raises(KeyError):