The Federal Court of Australia has ruled in favour of a biological male joining on all-girl chat room on the grounds that “sex is not confined to being a biological concept.” A biological male who identifies as a woman and goes by the name Roxanne Tickle sued Sall Grover, founder of female-only app Giggle for Girls for discriminating against him due to its policy of maintaining a space exclusively for women. The court ruled Tickle faced unlawful discrimination when he was rejected membership to the female-only networking app due to his maleness. Tickle was subject to “indirect discrimination,” the court found. Grover has to pay him AUD$10,000 in compensation and legal costs, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.“The stakes are high in this case. Women’s international human rights will be lost if ‘woman’ now includes any male who identifies as such. This decision matters not just in Australia but also to the watching world,” said Grover’s lawyer Katherine Deves of Alexander Rashidi Lawyers, per ADF. Tickle argued he was “legally permitted to identify as female.” He had his birth certificate changed to indicate female and therefore should be allowed in female-only spaces he asserted. . Defence said women should have the right to their own spaces, both in daily life and online. “In ruling that Tickle, a biological male, was a victim of discrimination when prevented from joining a woman’s app, the court has delivered an egregiously flawed judgment that removes protections for women," said ADF International Director of Advocacy, who supported Giggle for Girls in the court.Yet, the court rejected the defence that Tickle was “not unlawfully discriminated against, but instead disqualified from joining the app due to his male sex.”“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,” said the court. “For decades, women’s movements have fought for the right to have female spaces in society. Yet today, the clock is being wound back,” said Grover, per ADF International.“I designed my app to give women their own space to network. It is a legal fiction that Tickle is a woman. His birth certificate has been altered from male to female, but he is a biological man, and always will be. A woman’s-only app isn’t about discrimination. It’s about freedom of speech, belief and association.”“We are taking a stand for the safety of all women’s only spaces, but also for basic reality and truth, which the law should reflect.” Grover earlier said if she lost in court, she would appeal and fight the case all the way to Australia’s High Court.
