Australian transgender woman wins landmark case against female-only app

By Renju Jose

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian court ruled on Friday that removing a transgender woman from female-only social networking platform Giggle for Girls constituted discrimination, in a landmark decision on gender identity for the country.

Roxanne Tickle in 2022 sued the Australian app and founder Sally Grover for unlawful gender identity discrimination in its services, saying Grover revoked Tickle's account after seeing her photo and "considered her to be male."

The Federal Court, Australia's second-highest, ordered Giggle for Girls to pay Tickle A$10,000 ($6,700) plus legal costs but declined to order the company to issue a written apology, which Tickle had sought.

"Tickle's claim of direct gender identity discrimination fails, but her claim of indirect gender identity discrimination succeeds," Judge Robert Bromwich said.

The case marks the first time that the Federal Court has made a ruling on gender identity discrimination since changes were made to the Sex Discrimination Act in 2013.

"This decision is a great win for transgender women in Australia," said Professor Paula Gerber at Monash University's Faculty of Law.

"This case sends a clear message to all Australians that it is unlawful to treat transgender women differently from cisgender women. It is not lawful to make decisions about whether a person is a woman based on how feminine they appear," Gerber said.

Giggle for Girls was marketed as a "safe space" for women to discuss and share their experiences and had some 20,000 users in 2021, court filings show. It suspended operations in 2022 but is due to be relaunched soon, according to Grover.

Bromwich said Giggle for Girls considered only sex at birth as being a valid basis on which a person may claim to be a man or woman. Tickle was of male sex at the time of birth but underwent gender-affirming surgery and Tickle's birth certificate was updated, he said.

"Unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated. The fight for women's rights continues," Grover said in a post on X.

Tickle called the verdict "healing" and said she had received hateful comments online and that merchandise was created specifically to mock her.

"There is so much hate and bile cast on trans and gender diverse people simply because of who we are," Australian media quoted her as saying outside the court.

($1 = 1.4899 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)