Equality Australia joins fight against female-only spaces
Equality Australia is challenging the proposition advanced by Sall Grover – and by the Lesbian Action Group – that sex is a binary biological reality.
The powerful gay and trans rights advocacy group Equality Australia, which counts Governor-General Sam Mostyn as patron, is bidding to join transgender woman Roxanne Tickle in her court battle to establish that female-only spaces are unlawful if they exclude trans women.
Equality Australia has applied to the Federal Court for leave to appear next week in support of Ms Tickle’s case against Giggle app founder Sall Grover, who was found last year to have unlawfully rejected Ms Tickle from the female-only networking platform because she was a biological man.
In what is shaping to be the nation’s most consequential legal battle over trans and women’s rights, Equality Australia is challenging the proposition advanced by Ms Grover – and by the Lesbian Action Group – that sex is a binary biological reality.
The intervention by Equality Australia in Ms Grover’s appeal reveals the depth of division in the LGBTIQ+ community sparked by the landmark case. Equality Australia’s request to appear as intervener, or alternatively amicus curiae (friend of the court), is in direct response against submissions filed by the Lesbian Action Group.
The long-established lesbian group is now pitted against both Equality Australia and Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody, who has already been granted amicus curiae status in the case and whose position mirrors Ms Tickle’s.
Ms Grover told The Australian she believed the direct support from Equality Australia and its chair of Trans Equality, activist Teddy Cook, was designed from the start to create a strategic test case to establish that female-only spaces are unlawful, and in doing so to erode both women’s and LGB rights under the Sex Discrimination Act.
It appears Ms Tickle’s association with Mr Cook predates her action against Ms Grover and Giggle. Ms Tickle posted a picture of herself with Mr Cook – who was then a community health director with ACON – on social media on November 21, 2021, two weeks before lodging her first complaint against Ms Grover with the Human Rights Commission.
“That tells me it was legal activism, it was planned,” Ms Grover said. “One thing I know for sure is that before Tickle went on the app, he knew who I was, what my stance on female-only spaces (was), and then he went on the app – so I was his perfect sitting duck, I just didn’t know it.”
Mr Cook was the subject of the recent case in which Elon Musk’s X successfully appealed against a takedown order issued by eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant over a social media post last year by Canadian activist Chris Elston.
Mr Elston had slammed the proposed appointment of Mr Cook, a biological female, to a World Health Organisation panel on healthcare delivery. His tweet linked to a Daily Mail article that made reference to Mr Cook’s use of private social media accounts to post material relating to bestiality, public nudity, bondage parties and transgender orgies.
The eSafety order was set aside by the Administrative Review Tribunal, which ruled that although the post was offensive it was “consistent with views Mr Elston has expressed elsewhere in circumstances where the expression of the view had no malicious intent”.
Mr Cook referred questions from The Australian to Equality Australia.
Equality Australia CEO Anna Brown said: “Teddy Cook only joined Equality Australia as a consultant earlier this year and his personal friendships have no bearing on the decision by Equality Australia to intervene in this matter. Our legal submissions focus on the overall construction of the act and not the factual matters at issue between the parties.”
Equality Australia boasts that it uses legal, policy and communications expertise to achieve equality for LGBTIQ+ people. The group gets most of its funding from private donations but also receives $150,000 a year in government grants.
Equality Australia argues in its submission that “sex” is non-binary and changeable, and not confined to a biological concept, instead having a broader meaning that includes aspects of social recognition and personal identification. It says “sex” cannot be narrowly focused on biological characteristics fixed at birth.
That view is at odds with the Lesbian Action Group’s – and Ms Grover’s – position that “sex,” “men” and “women” are limited by biological sex characteristics.
Ms Grover said she was disappointed to learn Equality Australia had sought to join Dr Cody in opposing her appeal, but more upset that the LGBTIQ+ group was standing against lesbians.
“My heart sank when I saw it, because they aren’t actually intervening against me, they’re intervening against the lesbians – the first letter, the L in their acronym they claim to advocate for.
“Either lesbian means something specific or it doesn’t. And if men can be lesbians, what are you advocating for? Because to say that a man can be a lesbian, you are now advocating for the rights of heterosexual men, not homosexual women. You’ve completely flipped it while gaslighting society that you’re sitting there caring for this rainbow community.”
While Ms Grover is appealing judge Robert Bromwich’s ruling against her last year in the Federal Court, Ms Tickle is also appealing parts of the decision, arguing she was the victim of direct, rather than indirect, discrimination and that Ms Grover should pay her at least $40,000 for the hurt caused.
Equality Australia’s application to intervene will be decided on the first day of the appeal hearing on August 4.
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