High Court Rejects Sall Grover’s Final Appeal In Giggle v Tickle Trans Discrimination Case

As of September 10, the High Court of Australia has officially rejected Sall Grover’s final attempt to appeal the Federal Court’s verdict in the Giggle v Tickle discrimination case. Six judges of the High Court found that “there was no reason to doubt” the decision was wrong and that Giggle had “insufficient prospects of success”.

It comes after the Federal Court dismissed Grover’s first appeal in May, confirming their original 2024 verdict that Grover unlawfully excluded trans woman Roxanne Tickle from her now defunct women-only social networking app, Giggle For Girls. 

“This is a major win!” wrote a spokesperson for Equality Australia. “Australian law has long recognised that a person’s legal sex is not limited to the sex they were assigned at birth. Trans women, like all women, deserve to live safely, participate fully in society, and be treated with dignity and respect.”

Others were less happy with the ruling, including Family First Party’s Lyle Shelton.

“Family First is outraged that Sall has been denied the opportunity to take her case further in the High Court,” Shelton wrote. “Courts interpret the laws politicians give them. If the law no longer adequately protects women’s sex-based rights, Parliament must fix it. 

“The Commonwealth should define woman, man and sex according to biological reality and explicitly protect female-only sport, toilets, change rooms, refuges, prisons and other legitimate single-sex services and spaces.”

Sall Grover’s First Appeal Equally Unsuccessful

At the time of Grover’s first appeal, the court not only rejected it, but upped the charges from indirect to direct discrimination, and increased damages from $1,000 to $2,000, on account of Grover’s aggravating conduct. 

Ultimately, the Federal Court upheld the decision that the discrimination faced by Roxanne Tickle on the grounds of gender identity was contrary to Section 22 of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination act 1984 when read with section 51B and that under the Act, the concept of womanhood “is not to be understood by reference to any narrow or rigid conception of femaleness”. 

The ruling was the first gender identity discrimination case in Australia to reach the federal court, and the first time the updated Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) had been tested in a court. Now, thanks to the High Court’s decision, the matter is officially closed.

Sall Grover’s Response

Responding to the High Court’s decision, Sall Grover told the Star Observer that “men who claim to be women” may “win some battles along the way”, but will “never actually be women”.

“Men who claim to be women are men,” said Grover. “That is reality. No court decision will change that reality. They were men yesterday, they’re men today and they will be men tomorrow. I will remain a woman, something men who claim to be women will never be. That’s how reality works.”

“In between celebrating this victory, men who claim to be women need to understand that the Giggle v Tickle decision means that they also can’t have trans only spaces now without risk of legal action. A Giggle v Tickle win would have protected trans only spaces just as much as it would have protected women’s spaces.”