A landmark transgender discrimination case in Australia has concluded with a revised ruling that strengthens protections for gender-diverse people, boosting the compensation awarded to a trans woman who was expelled from a female-only digital platform.
The case, which has made legal history as the first gender identity discrimination claim to be heard by Australia’s Federal Court, stems from an incident in 2021, when Roxanne Tickle, a trans woman, downloaded and registered for the Giggle for Girls app. After completing the selfie-based registration process, Tickle used the platform for six months before her account was removed by the app’s founder, Sall Grover.
Grover, who launched the app in 2020 after experiencing misogynistic abuse from men during her career as a screenwriter in Hollywood, created the platform to serve as a private, women-only digital safe space. During the original court proceedings, Grover testified that she removed Tickle’s account after identifying what she described as “male facial features” in Tickle’s profile photo, treating her the same way she would treat any cisgender man seeking access to the platform.
Nearly two years ago, the original ruling found Grover guilty of indirect discrimination against Tickle and awarded the trans woman AU$10,000 in compensation. Dissatisfied with the finding, Grover filed an appeal seeking to overturn the original verdict. On Friday, a full panel of three Federal Court judges dismissed Grover’s appeal, upgrading the ruling to a finding of unlawful direct discrimination against Tickle and doubling her compensation to AU$20,000, equal to roughly $14,000 USD or £11,000 GBP.
In their judgement, the judges noted that the original trial judge had made an error in not classifying Tickle’s removal, which followed Grover’s initial visual assessment of her profile photo, as direct discrimination. The ruling confirmed that under Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act, service providers are prohibited from discriminating against individuals on the basis of gender identity. The court made clear that Grover had treated Tickle, a trans woman, far less favorably than she would have treated a cisgender woman seeking access to the app.
Throughout the original trial, Grover’s legal team argued that sex is a strictly biological category, and conceded that discrimination did occur, but claimed it was based on biological sex rather than gender identity.
Shortly after the Federal Court released its revised ruling Friday, Grover announced she plans to take her challenge to Australia’s High Court in a final bid to overturn the judgement.