The Federal Court of Australia found on Friday that “Roxanne Tickle,” a man who identifies as a woman, was subjected to “indirect gender discrimination” after being removed from Giggle for Girls, a female-only social platform that is now defunct. The app is ordered to pay Tickle $10,000 Australian (roughly $6,800 USD) and his legal costs.
“Sex is not confined to being a biological concept referring to whether a person at birth had male or female physical traits, nor confined to being a binary concept, limited to the male or female sex, but rather takes a broader ordinary meaning, informed by its use, including in State and Territory legislation,” reads the court judgment. “And accordingly, sex can refer to a person being male, female, or another non-binary status and also encompasses the idea that a person’s sex can be changed.”
Sall Grover founded the app Giggle for Girls, which used facial-recognition technology Kairos to approve female users for accounts and screen out males. If the Kairos technology was 95 percent certain that an applicant is female, that user would be approved, and the app’s administrators would manually remove any males who had wrongly gained access. Tickle was initially approved for an account but was later manually removed from the platform.
According to the court decision, Tickle sent a series of eight emails about his removal from the platform to Grover and general email for Giggle, and further tried to contact Grover by phone. Tickle filed a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission against Grover and Giggle in December, 2021.
“I believe that Giggle and Sall Grover have decided in error that I am male and have declined to grant me full use of the app,” Tickle wrote in the complaint.
“I have been unable to locate a Facebook page or website for the Klu Klux Klan in Australia,” Tickle continued. “Yet groups that favour discrimination against people based on their gender identity appear to have no need to hide their faces.”
The court ruled on Friday that Tickle had been subject to “indirect gender identity discrimination.”
“Roxanne Tickle is a transgender woman whose female sex is recognized by an official updated Queensland birth certificate,” reads a summary of the court ruling, which refers to Tickle with feminine pronouns throughout. “I have found that [Mr.] Tickle’s claim of direct gender identity discrimination fails but that [his] claim of indirect gender identity discrimination succeeds.”
Grover responded to the decision on social media by stating that “unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated,” adding that “the fight for women’s rights continues.”
In 2023, the Counsel for the Sex Discrimination Commissioner submitted an amicus brief to the court arguing that “the word ‘sex’ is not a biological concept referring to whether a person at birth had male or female physical traits.” Anna Cody, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner in Australia, released a statement on Friday commending the court’s decision.
“No one in Australia should face exclusion or discrimination based on sex or gender identity,” reads Cody’s statement. “We will continue to stand with trans communities and advocate for the rights of all women, including women who are trans.”