An app meant to be an “online refuge” for women is at the center of a lawsuit after a “trans woman” filed a lawsuit claiming that the company revoked “her” account.
Roxanne Tickle, a man who thinks he’s a woman, from New South Wales, Australia, sued the women-only platform Giggle for Girls after the company reportedly blocked his profile in 2021.
In a federal court hearing on Tuesday, Tickle claimed that the app and its founder, Sall Grover, illegally discriminated against Tickle on the grounds of “gender identity.”
Georgina Costello, Tickle’s attorney, reportedly stated, “The evidence will show that Ms. Tickle is a woman,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “She perceives herself as a woman. She presents herself as a woman.”
In addition, Costello reportedly told the court in her opening statement that “gender is not merely a biological question, it is partly social and partly psychological.”
“Ms Tickle was assigned male gender at birth but she has changed to being a woman and that fact is clear in this case,” she said.
The app reportedly gave women ways to connect, find roommates, among other things.
“The vision was to create an online refuge,” Giggle’s barrister Bridie Nolan, said. “It would be a place without harassment, mansplaining, d*** pics, stalking, aggression.”
This biological man could take away the rights of EVERY WOMAN in Australia after he sued a woman who refused to allow him on a women’s app.
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 9, 2024
Roxy Tickle’s court case against entrepreneur and owner of Giggle women’s app @salltweets if successful, would change women’s rights under… pic.twitter.com/SPnrfwDMNd
According to Alliance Defending Freedom International, Tickle has his birth certificate amended to say that he is a woman (ADF International):
Tickle claims that, being “legally permitted to identify as female” and having had his birth certificate edited to represent him as such, he should be permitted into spaces designated for biological women. The defence maintain that women have a right to single-sex spaces, both online and offline. The defence refute that Tickle was discriminated on the basis of gender identity; instead, they argue that Tickle’s disqualification from joining the app was on the basis of sex.
The case asks the court to address the conflict between gender identity claims and the hard-fought and well-established sex-based rights of biological females – essentially making a decision about who, and what, is a “woman”.
“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 said.