I didn't mean to imply that there are infact no examples of "no platforming (being) used and justified in this way", but I think it is much better form to point out the specifics rather than indulge in dishonest lost performatives and universal quantifiers like "The *entire* reasoning behind no-platforming is *supposedly* to make the whole university a safe space at all times", and statements like "I honestly don't think *this* is really about safe spaces and free speech" aren't that much better. I don't really see a lot of evidence on any side that people are particularly interested in having "honest debates", though I think it would be good to understand what people think honest debating actually looks like.
Ok, I think the question of what an honest debate actually looks like is a good one.
To clarify a little what I meant, when I said 'this' I suppose I was really referring to the debates and issues affecting women we were talking about (Greer, Bindle etc), where I suspect structural sexism is the (often ignored) underlying factor that our concepts of 'safe spaces' and 'free speech' are actually built on, and which makes the possibility of an 'honest' debate pretty remote. And excluding from debates feminists, the very people who are most likely to recognise and talk about this structural oppression, makes that possibility even more remote.
When Luka mentioned female-only groups as safe spaces near the beginning of this conversation it made me think, yes, this is fine and necessary. But to make any profound structural change, to build an effective political movement, at some point the ideas that come from these groups have to be carried over into the wider world. And this is where the problems begin. Subsumed into larger umbrella groups like LGBT their voices get drowned out, they get talked over by men (because anyone pretending that the LGBT isn't also dominated by male voices is very naive) and they even end up participating in excluding/no platforming feminists from the outside who could actually help their cause.
Similarly, 'free speech', in reality, often just means free speech for men.
Maybe, just maybe, if this structural oppression didn't exist then a truly honest debate might be possible. But until then, I think fighting to include feminists in debates at universities is a noble cause, even if you don't think that constitutes being interested in an 'honest' debate. You may think that being no platformed doesn't really matter, that they still have a voice that they can express elsewhere. But I think any advance in this area can only be a positive thing and is worth fighting for. Feminist women shouldn't be told that they might as well give up and go elsewhere, back to their little bubbles or media echo chambers.