Founder of the Giggle for Girls app Sall Grover says she is confident in the outcome of her appeal to the Federal Court of Australia against transgender opponent Roxanne Tickle.
In a post to social media, she said the Giggle v Tickle appeal proceedings were finally finished, more three years after Tickle first filed a discrimination suit.
Grover was originally taken to court after refusing Tickle access to the app, an action which was later ruled to be discriminatory.
“We took facts and the correct construction of that law into the courtroom,” she posted on X on 7 August.
“No emotion, no ideology, just reality. This was the instruction I gave, and it was achieved.
Under the previous ruling, Tickle was awarded $10,000 plus costs after Justice Robert Bromwich ruled the case was discrimination.
The case, which took place in 2022, was the first case of gender identity in the Australian legal system.
Gender discrimination case shows the urgent need for a reality check
In her appeal, Grover claimed Tickle was not discriminated against indirectly as she was unaware Tickle was transgender at the time of the ban.
Grover has also come under fire for refusing to refer to Tickle with female pronouns.
The appeal, which took place in early August, did not include a constitutional challenge like the original trial but focussed heavily on the conclusions drawn from the previous suit.
The appeal is in part about the definition of “woman” and whether, as Bromwich ruled in the original case, trans-identified males who claim to be women must be included.
Director, Public Affairs and Engagement for the Archdiocese of Sydney Monica Doumit said the case was “beyond parody.”
“To think that the full bench of the Federal Court is being asked to define something as obvious as what it means to be a woman should be comical, but it’s not,” she said.
“It’s a demonstration of the lengths to which modern-day suffragettes like Sall Grover need to go to preserve women’s only spaces for all women.”
Grover also slammed the ruling, saying the trial “was a circus” and Bromwich was “aggressively hostile.”
The ruling follows the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, which made it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Grover hit out at this ruling, saying Sex Discrimination Commissioner Dr Anna Cody’s definition of the law was “bonkers.”
“It is gender ideology in legalese,” Grover said.
“It is an attempt to enshrine a zeitgeist into legislation, while ignoring every group the Sex Discrimination Act exists to protect in favour of one group: men who claim to be women.”
She said if lawmakers felt trans-identified males needed protection, they should create another Act instead of amending the existing one which protects women.
“Women need laws too and the Sex Discrimination Act has to not only include but protect women otherwise there is absolutely no point to it,” she said.
Although Grover said she felt confident, she also conceded the case might go to the High Court and, if this were to be the case, she would continue to fight.
“I would definitely take it if need be, and I have no doubt that the other side feels the same,” she said.
“We have proven that, while gender ideology has institutional support, the power of the people want reality.”
Women’s Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong says the belief a person can change their sex, championed by LGBT advocacy groups and at the centre of the trial, was “some of the nonsense spoken” in the case.
“Human beings cannot change sex. Men can never be women. And men do not belong in female-only spaces, no matter how they identify,” she said in her newsletter.
“The case has far-reaching implications for women’s sex-based rights in Australia and protections for female-only spaces, services and sports, and we hope the judges side with truth, reality and common sense in their judgement.”
