Removing transgender woman from female-only app was discrimination, Australian court rules

A female-only app discriminated against a transgender woman by removing her from the platform, an Australian court has ruled in a landmark case.

The Federal Court of Australia found on Friday that Roxanne Tickle, a transgender woman from New South Wales, was subjected to “indirect gender discrimination” when she was blocked from the social network platform Giggle for Girls in 2021.

She had sued the platform and its founder Sally Grover in 2022 for unlawful gender identity discrimination in its services, and claimed Ms Grover revoked her account after seeing her photo and “considered her to be male”.

Judge Robert Bromwich said in his ruling that while Ms Tickle was not directly discriminated against, her claim of indirect discrimination was successful as using the Giggle App required her “to have the appearance of a cisgender woman”.

He ruled Giggle for Girls and Ms Grover must pay Ms Tickle $10,000 (£5,142) in general compensation, in addition to her costs.

He did not rule in favour of Ms Tickle’s claim for an apology “because it is futile and inappropriate to require an inevitably insincere apology to be made”.

The case marked the first time the Federal Court – Australia’s second highest – made a ruling on gender identity discrimination since changes were made to the Sex Discrimination Act in 2013, which introduced new protections for sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.

Ms Tickle said the verdict was “healing,” and was quoted as saying outside the court: “There is so much hate and bile cast on trans and gender diverse people simply because of who we are.”

Ms Grover meanwhile said on X: “Unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated. The fight for women’s rights continues.” She has launched a fundraiser to appeal the decision.

Ms Tickle has lived as a woman since 2017, underwent gender-affirming surgery in 2019, is legally recognised as a woman, and is identified as a female in the Queensland Register.

According to the ruling, Giggle required users to upload a selfie to sign up for the app, which was then analysed by artificial intelligence to verify users as female.

While Ms Tickle was identified by the AI software as a woman when she first applied to use the app in February 2021, she later noticed her access to Giggle had been restricted and later revoked.

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Ms Tickle alleged Ms Grover removed her after seeing her photo, although the judge added “there is no firm basis” the app’s founder “was aware of who Ms Tickle was or her gender identity”.

Judge Bromwich said the evidence did not establish Ms Tickle was excluded from Giggle directly “by reason of her gender identity although it remains possible that this was the real but unproven reason”.

He said however that Ms Grover’s views on sex and gender “by the time of the trial were clear,” and added that when she was asked if she would accept a transgender woman as female if they had medically transitioned and were legally recognised as one, she “would not view that person as a woman”.

“Ms Grover made clear in cross-examination that she does not differentiate between people who were assigned male at birth, even if they have since transitioned to become transgender women, stating ‘they’re male people’,” he added.

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Judge Bromwich also noted Ms Grover’s conduct during the trial in how she was “laughing, in the course of her oral evidence, at a demeaning caricature of Ms Tickle”.

“Her explanation, that it was funny in the context of the courtroom, was obviously disingenuous,” he said. “It was offensive and belittling, and had no legitimate place in the respondents prosecuting their case.”

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