AUS: High Court Denies Appeal to Woman’s Rights Campaigner Ordered to Pay $120,000 to Trans-Identified Male For Correctly Recognizing Him as a Man

The High Court of Australia has denied an appeal lodged by women’s rights advocate Sall Grover in a landmark case which ruled that “sex is changeable” and ordered her to pay $20,000, with an additional maximum of $100,000 in court fees, to a trans-identified male for recognizing him as a man.

The case has now set a legal precedent allowing men with a self-declared gender identity, or a legally fictitious recording of sex, to take priority over sex-specific protections for women and girls.

The response comes after years of litigation initiated in December 2021, after Jason “Roxanne” Tickle filed a discrimination complaint through the Australian Human Rights Commission over being denied access to women-only application Giggle for Girls, which was founded by Grover. Tickle had been barred from using the female-only platform, intended as an “online refuge” for women, after Grover identified him as male based on a photo he submitted during the membership application process.

The court case, known as Tickle v. Giggle, tested the meaning and scope of the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA), which was altered in 2013 under the government of prime minister Julia Gillard.

The revisions to the SDA made it unlawful under federal law to discriminate against a person on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.

The High Court’s rejection of Grover’s appeal was released today, and stated, “There is no reason to doubt the Full Court’s construction of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984… Special leave to appeal is refused with costs.”

Grover responded by saying, “I will never stop fighting. Men are not women.”

Tickle, a man who claims to be both intersex and transgender, claimed he attempted to join the female-only app in February 2021 but found that his membership was revoked in September that year. The Giggle app utilizes a screening process which uses AI to determine the sex of an applicant based on a selfie. Tickle was initially granted access to the female-only digital community by the AI.

During an interview with The Australian in April 2022, Grover explained that she took it upon herself to remove Tickle after seeing his photo and identifying him as male. “The person was removed from the Giggle app because they are male, no other reason. The removal was manual. I looked at the onboarding selfie and saw a man. The AI software had let them through, thereby making a mistake that I rectified.” Lawyers defending Grover said that she had been unaware that Tickle identified as transgender during the screening process.

Tickle was therefore was booted from the community, and then made several attempts to contact Grover to complain. He sent Grover multiple emails and called her at her home in October 2021. Tickle first filed the discrimination complaint with the with the Australian Human Rights Commission against Giggle creator and CEO Grover in December 2021.

Jason “Roxy” Tickle

Tickle had, in his first complaint, sought damages from Grover of up to $200,000, alleging that her “persistent misgendering”, or referring to him as male, had prompted “constant anxiety and occasional suicidal thoughts”. He also requested that Grover be made to “seek out education” regarding the concept of gender identity.

“I believe that I am being discriminated against by being provided with extremely limited functionality of a smartphone app by the app provider compared to that of other users because I am a transgender woman,” Tickle wrote in the complaint. “I am legally permitted to identify as female… I believe that Giggle and Sall Grover have decided in error that I am male.”

Tickle bizarrely went on to compare Grover to a white supremacist group, saying, “I have been unable to locate a Facebook page or website for the Ku Klux Klan in Australia. Yet groups that favor discrimination against people based on their gender identity appear to have no need to hide their face.” He then went on to list several Australian women’s rights groups which are critical of males being permitted to identify as female, and referred to this position as “bigotry”.

In July of 2022, Tickle, being unable to bear the costs of pursuing the matter further, filed a Notice of Discontinuance with the court, and the complaint was dropped. But five months later, Tickle filed another complaint, having received a $50,000 grant from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, and assistance from Barry Nilsson lawyers, who run a multimillion-dollar pro bono program.

In contrast, Grover was left with no other option than to crowdfund an incredible $500,000 in order to defend herself against the discrimination claim.

In August 2024, after nearly three years of litigation, the Federal Court of Australia ruled that Grover had committed “indirect gender identity discrimination” by rejecting Tickle’s membership. While reading out the verdict and reasons for his decision, Justice Bromwich referred to Tickle with feminine pronouns.

“Roxanne Tickle is a transgender woman whose female sex is recognized by an official updated Queensland birth certificate… I have found that Ms. Tickle’s claim of direct gender identity discrimination fails but that her claim of indirect gender identity discrimination succeeds.”

Justice Bromwich then ordered Grover to pay Tickle $10,000 compensation, in addition to court costs up to $50,000, within 60 days.

“In relation to the direct discrimination claim, the evidence did not establish that Ms Tickle was excluded from the Giggle app by reason of her gender identity, although it remains possible that this was the real, but unproven, reason,” Justice Bromwich told the court.

Justice Bromwich went on to say that “that indirect gender identity discrimination did take place” on the basis that “Tickle was excluded from the use of the Giggle app because she did not look sufficiently female according to the respondents.”

The argument made by Grover’s legal team was that Tickle was discriminated against on the basis of his sex, which is not prohibited, rather than on the basis of gender identity, as he claims. Justice Bromwich’s verdict stated that “these arguments failed” due to a “long history of cases decided by courts going back over thirty years” which he said established that, “in its ordinary meaning, sex is changeable.”

Throughout the court proceedings, Grover refused to refer to Tickle with feminine honorifics or pronouns. “I don’t think it’s kind to expect a woman to see a man as a woman,” she said at a hearing in May 2024.

Tickle appealed the 2024 verdict of indirect discrimination, seeking a ruling of direct discrimination. In May of this year, Justice Melissa Perry sided with Tickle, doubled the compensation payout from $10,000 to $20,000, found Grover guilty of direct discrimination, and ordered her to pay court costs for Tickle up to $100,000. In her decision, Justice Perry cited the Sex Discrimination Act of 1984, which was significantly amended in 2013 to include explicit protections for “gender identity.”

Under Section 4(1), “gender identity” is defined as: “…the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of a person (whether by way of medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the person’s designated sex at birth.”

Section 5B defines what constitutes discrimination in a legal situation and is divided into two categories: direct discrimination, and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination “occurs when someone is treated less favorably than a person of a different gender identity would be treated in the same or similar circumstances.” It can be inferred from this definition that the law is suggesting that all individuals possess a “gender identity.”

Indirect discrimination is said to occur “when a condition or requirement is imposed that is the same for everyone but has the effect of disadvantaging people of a particular gender identity, and that condition is not “reasonable” under the circumstances.”

The final ruling stated that Grover had “engaged in unlawful direct discrimination” against trans-identified male Tickle by “excluding Ms Tickle from access to the Giggle App on the basis of her gender-related appearance,” “refusing to restore Ms Tickle’s access to the Giggle App on the basis of her gender-related appearance,” and “thereby treating Ms Tickle, who is a transgender woman, less favourably than a person designated female at birth seeking access to the Giggle App.”

Incredibly, Justice Perry argued that having “male facial features” was a protected characteristic of “transgender women.”

“It is apparent that Ms Grover made her decisions in relation to Ms Tickle solely on the basis of viewing the latter’s onboarding selfie and her conviction that that photograph showed a male person… Ms Tickle’s selfie was in evidence and we were taken to it in the course of argument in the appeal. Although the photograph presents Ms Tickle as a woman (eg hair, clothing), there are features of her appearance that may be considered discordant with that presentation. Ms Tickle’s appearance, it may safely be concluded, was the reason why Ms Grover concluded that she was not entitled to remain as a user of the Giggle App; and that appearance had elements (“characteristics”) that generally appertain to, or at least are imputed to, transgender women – namely, for want of a better expression, male facial features.”

Justice Melissa Perry doubled the amount Sall Grover had been ordered to pay, and found her guilty of “direct discrimination”

In addition to his attempts to access the female-only social networking app, Tickle has been playing field hockey on a women’s team. He has opposed proposed legislation which would have prohibited men from identifying into women’s sports, while boasting of using the women’s change rooms. Tickle took to X to reveal that the youngest girl he competed with on the field hockey team was just 15 years old.

On his personal Instagram account, Tickle has also shared photos of his underwear, jokes about sex toys, and several cartoons drawn by Canadian transgender diaper fetishist Sophie Labelle.

Grover, a former Hollywood screenwriter, created the Giggle app after experiencing “horrific” sexism in the industry, including both sexual harassment and assault.

Speaking with feminist author and activist Julie Bindel, Grover defended the right for women to gather without the presence of men. “The reasons for female-only spaces have not gone away. So we should not be in a position to have to justify them. We do not have to relive the trauma we have gone through at the hands of men every time we want to defend why we want to be away from them occasionally.”

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