Female-only Giggle app CEO Sall Grover defends barring trans woman Roxanne Tickle

Giggle for Girls founder Sall Grover has defended her decision to bar a transgender woman from the platform partly via a constitutional challenge.

Sall Grover, the founder and CEO of female-only networking app Giggle for Girls. Picture: Justine Walpole

The founder of a female-only networking app will defend her decision to bar a transgender woman from the platform partly via a constitutional challenge.

Lawyers for Giggle for Girls chief executive Sall Grover will argue that Roxanne Tickle, the transgender and intersex person who brought the case against Ms Grover and Giggle, has the physical appearance and physiological characteristics of a man, raising questions around interpretations of characteristics of sex in the Sexual Discrimination Act.

If that fails, she will claim amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act that deal with gender identity and intersex status are “constitutionally invalid”.

Sall Grover. Photo: Glenn Hunt

While one constitutional expert said it could have “large implications” for how the Sex Discrimination Act applies to gender identity and intersex status, others said the defence “wouldn’t work” and was “wrong”.

Ms Tickle relaunched proceedings after they were discontinued in July last year.

Ms Grover’s legal defence, filed to the Federal Court last week, denies she unlawfully discriminated against Ms Tickle, who underwent gender affirming surgery in 2019, by excluding her from using and accessing the Giggle for Girls app, which was otherwise available to cisgender women.

Ms Grover denies “remedies” Ms Tickle has asked for, including damages and a written apology.

Ms Tickle was granted access to Giggle for Girls in February 2021. She uploaded a “selfie”, as is customary, and an artificial intelligence program determined the image was of a woman, according to Ms Tickle’s claim. It said in September 2021, Ms Grover used “override powers” to restrict Ms Tickle’s access to the app.

Ms Grover denies this and says Ms Tickle was removed because she is an “adult human male”.

Ms Grover is partly relying on sections of the SDA related to sexual orientation and intersex status, which were added in 2013, being “constitutionally invalid”.

One of the arguments is that the convention on which the SDA relies – the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Woman of 1979 – does not deal with discrimination on the basis of gender identity and intersex status.

Roxanne Tickle. Picture: Supplied

Constitutional law expert George Williams said these were “familiar arguments” in challenging anti-discrimination statutes, but they raised “significant constitutional issues”.

“If they win, it could have large implications for that Sex Discrimination Act and how it applies to gender identity and intersex status. It would set a precedent. It’s about a particular organisation, but it may have larger implications especially if they won,” the UNSW Scientia professor said.

ACU constitutional expert Greg Craven said he didn’t think the defence would work as they were “very narrow interpretations” of commonwealth powers.

“I also don’t think the High Court would regard the meaning of ‘woman’ as being eternally fixed under the Constitution in applying a treaty,” he added.

Screenshot of the app Giggle for Girls.

Human rights expert Sarah Joseph said the argument was “wrong” because the CEDAW committee had previously said it covered all women, including transgender and intersex women, and on top of that, a separate convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, protects people on the basis of gender identity.

Ms Grover’s lawyer Alex Rashidi, of Alexander Rashidi Lawyers, was reserved about the challenge, saying: “Our client hopes that a successful challenge will, at the very least, shed some light on these issues and provide some clarity, as for the rest we will have to wait and see.”

But a crowd-funding page, which has raised more $60,000, set up by Ms Grover for her “constitutional challenge” called it a “landmark fight”.

“My case is likely to have far reaching consequences. This is the first time that the gender amendments have been tested in a court of law. This case will benefit all Australians by bringing clarity to a very important part of the law,” it reads.

Giggle for Girls has not been operational since August 2022 but is set to “relaunch soon”, according to Ms Grover.