Transgender woman wins landmark case against ‘female-only’ app
Let's get more now on transgender woman Roxanne Tickle's landmark court win. Human rights law expert Paula Gerber says the decision will fill the trans community with joy.
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00:00Sally Grover, the CEO of Giggle for Girls app, which is an app designed for women only,
00:10she excluded Roxanne Tickle from being on the platform because she looked at a photo
00:15of Roxanne and determined that Roxanne Tickle was a man, that men were not allowed in the
00:21online space of Giggle for Girls and therefore she was removed from the site that she'd been
00:27part of for seven months.
00:28Okay, and so then what did the judge find today?
00:32The judge found that that amounted to discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act, that Roxanne
00:38Tickle was a woman, her sex was a woman, her gender identity was a woman and that Sally
00:44Grover had violated the Sex Discrimination Act by looking at a photo and making a determination
00:52that Roxanne Tickle was not feminine enough to be part of the Giggle for Girls app.
00:57Much of the proceedings centred around what constitutes a woman under Australian law
01:03and whether someone's sex can be changed.
01:06What did it find in that area?
01:09It found that sex is not immutable, that sex can be changed, that when a child is born
01:14a doctor makes a presumption about what their sex is based on what they see before them
01:20and that is then designated as their sex on their birth certificate, but that is not fixed
01:25in time, that can be changed and Roxanne Tickle in 2017 changed her sex on her birth certificate
01:32a year after undergoing sex reassignment surgery.
01:35So according to the law and according to most of society, Roxanne Tickle's sex is female,
01:41she is a woman.
01:42Now this has been closely watched by many areas of society, particularly the trans cohort
01:50of society beyond this case and Roxanne Tickle.
01:53Well firstly I want to ask you what are the impacts for transgender women, the outcome
01:58of this case?
02:00Well this is a landmark decision that will fill the trans community with great joy because
02:05the court has unequivocally said that you cannot discriminate against someone on the
02:12basis of their gender identity, that you cannot look at a photo and say oh I don't accept
02:17that you're a woman, I'm going to exclude you from a woman only space.
02:20So it sends a clear message to society that they must respect the rights of trans women,
02:25that they are women and they enjoy equality and respect.
02:30So beyond this case, beyond the story of Roxanne Tickle here, where will the ramifications
02:36extend?
02:38Well the law is decided on the facts of this case, so there will be ramifications, but
02:45how far they go and into what areas exactly we don't know, but what we do know is we've
02:49got a clear ruling from the court that sex can be changed and that you cannot discriminate
02:55against someone on the basis of gender identity.
02:57Now someone else may decide down the track that they're going to discriminate against
03:02a trans woman or a trans man and that will have to be challenged in court again.
03:07But this case sets a precedent that will be very hard to overcome, unless of course it
03:12is appealed.
03:13Yeah, and do you expect there to be an appeal?
03:16Well Sally Grover's immediate response was the fight for women's rights continues.
03:22So how that is to be interpreted we don't know.
03:25Perhaps she's intending to appeal, perhaps she's intending to just contest the right
03:29of trans women to be recognised as women in other spaces.
03:33So as a result of this case, can the trans community feel confident that the Sex Discrimination
03:38Act covers them entirely?
03:41We know that there were changes to that Act just a little over a decade ago.
03:45That's right, there's a long history of discrimination against transgender people and it was only
03:50in 2013 that the Sex Discrimination Act was amended to unequivocally state that you cannot
03:57discriminate against someone on the basis of their gender identity.
04:00So it's been 11 years since those legislative changes were introduced and this is the first
04:06time it's been tested in court and obviously successfully as far as the trans community
04:10is concerned.
04:11So tell me this and you might not be able to answer it, if an app was say to market
04:16itself as being open to cisgender women and it didn't allow trans women on, would that
04:24be against the law?
04:26That would absolutely be a violation of the Sex Discrimination Act.
04:30You can't differentiate between women based on their gender identity.
04:34You can't preference cisgender women to the exclusion of transgender women.