We disagree here about the definition. But the definition is not the point; the effect is the same: asking "both sides" to "de-escalate" when one party has been subjected to an existential attack by the other, prioritizes "civility" over equity.
But considering things differently canot help building a welcoming community, as any person feeling attacked can say "fuck off" or "fuck you". So in other situation, if someone kills another, the family is allowed to kill him?
Asking everyone to try remaining civilized when they interact is not an attempt to invalidate what you could say or think, or to criticize you as a person especially since you're not specifically targeted.Transphobia by definition is not civilized and the rules of civilized discourse do not apply when dealing with individuals who are external to your civilization. An individual whose very existence is being rejected by an interlocutor has no moral obligation to respond in a "civilized" way to the attacker, and any Code of Conduct which insists on civilized discourse under these circumstances does harm to the oppressed.
I can understand your point, but please admit it is not a consensus. Some persons consider that "Fuck off, nobody asked you for your shitty fascist opinion" is not acceptable publicly regardless the circumstances. And not because a transphobic deserves respect, but because doing so, you do not help the community to build and fight such ideas. First because if anyone can say this if he fels ofended, where and who is the limitation and why the offender would not consider himself allowed to escalate? Second because doig so, what do you bring to the community? Except expressing your frustration and your feelings, or your legitimate pain, what result can such a message have? Worst, why, me (abstraction), who is not part of the initial attack, as a simple member of the mailing, should I read such mail for a topic out of my life and what can I do for the author, anyway? Why someone makes me read this while I am a volunteer, I am here to relax, and dont know both persons?
That is why usually, and it seemed to work so far, such attacks are reported to CT, DPL, listmasters and BTS owner, and they take the appropriate actions to express the community support and protect the person against such horrible attacks. Such way results a ban or better, while a furious mail on a mailing list may, but also hurts third-(parties, creates a sad precedent, in public, and does not help the attacked person to fix the problem itself. And no, I dont want someone to discover Debian see such attacks in archives on the mailing. I prefer him to read 1) the mail (unfortunately) and 2) a notification from the listmasters that the author was banned. It would not discourage newcomers, unlikely insulting messages from persons estimating their attack deserves a strong public reply.
Regards