The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has declared the word ‘woman’ has become meaningless following a landmark legal decision in favour of protecting the human rights of transgender people over those of women.
It asserted: “The ruling is no laughing matter for Australian women. It saw Roxanne Tickle who “was of the male sex at time of birth (Judgment Paragraph 3) successfully sue a women-only space called Giggle for Girls for alleged gender discrimination in a case which is being watched around the world, and will have far-reaching consequences for every Australian girl and woman.”
To background the case, Roxanne Tickle was initially allowed to join the Giggle for Girls app, but several months later, that decision was reversed by the app’s founder and chief executive Sal Grover, allegedly after she looked at a photo and formed the opinion that the applicant was a man. Tickle then sued for alleged discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
On Friday (August 23), Federal Court Justice Robert Bromwich found that Tickle had been indirectly discriminated against. He ordered the respondents, Giggle for Girls and Sal Grover, to pay Tickle $10,000 compensation which is well short of the $200,000 Tickle was claiming. The court also ordered the respondents to pay Tickle’s legal costs, capped at $50,000.
Justice Bromwich wrote: “The acceptance that Ms. Tickle is correctly described as a woman, reinforcing her gender-identity status for the purposes of this proceeding, and therefore for the purposes of bringing her present claim of gender identity discrimination, is legally unimpeachable.”
Roxanne Tickle had also sought an apology, but the judge declined to order that on the basis it would be “futile and inappropriate to require an inevitably insincere apology to be made”. Sal Grover will appeal the decision, posting on X: “Unfortunately, we got the judgement we anticipated. The fight for women’s rights continues.”
The ACL’s National Director of Politics Wendy Francis reacted: “Following the Federal Court decision that “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, but rather takes a broader ordinary meaning, informed by its use, including in State and Territory legislation. (Judgment Paragraph 55) the word ‘woman’ is now meaningless.”
“The Australian Federal Court has effectively revised how being a woman is interpreted. It is no longer a biological reality, but a matter of self-determination. The court found Tickle “identifies, and is legally recognised, as a woman. She was male sex at birth, and since about June 2017 she has lived as a woman, which has been a gradual process of transitioning her gender including social, medical and legal components. (Judgment Paragraph 87), ” Ms. Francis continued.
“This judgment means that women’s only spaces such as DV shelters, school change-rooms, toilets, online chatrooms and prisons will see an increasing presence of born-male people present. Female sex-based rights no longer exist in Australia with the word “woman” having been meaningless under the Sex Discrimination Act,” she observed.
The ACL urged the federal government to call for “a review of the decision and amend the Sex Discrimination Act to protect female-born people or women as they used to be known.”
Roxanne Tickle hoped the decision was healing for transgender and gender diverse people, saying: “I brought my case to show trans people that you can be brave, and you can stand up for yourself.”
The court heard that Sal Grover created the Giggle app as a “safe space” for women to interact with each other, free from male patterns of online violence. The app was taken down while the case went through the courts. Despite indicating to the court she would not reinstate Giggle unless it excluded transgender applicants, she has signalled that there are now plans to restore it.
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody dismissed a suggestion that the decision redefined what a woman was and would allow men into women-only spaces. “The judge found there are 30 years of legal precedent that ‘women’ includes trans women. This isn’t a new or landmark decision in that way. It is recognising that is a part of our law,” Dr. Cody explained.
The Age reports Anna Kerr, principal solicitor from Feminist Legal Clinic was disappointed, but not surprised by the ruling. “Unfortunately, legislation and case law conflating gender identity with biological sex have effectively undermined the ability for women to have any spaces or services free of males,” she said.
“The hard fought rights and gains of the women’s liberation movement are being rapidly dismantled by decisions such as this, leaving women and children vulnerable in many contexts, including in services supporting victims of sexual and domestic violence, women’s prisons, public toilets and change rooms and in women’s sport.”
University of Melbourne Associate professor of philosophy Holly Lawford-Smith who is a gender critical feminist opposed to transgender people having access to female-only services and spaces, said the finding seemed to undercut any exemptions based on biological sex.
The Age quotes her as reflecting: “It seems to be that all permanent exemptions for women, in terms of affirmative action or protective safety measures for women, now have to be inclusive of men based on their gender identity. There’s just no more understanding of the history of women’s oppression on the basis of sex as the rationale for those exemptions. I find that pretty astonishing.”
