Female-Only App Founder Loses Appeal in Transgender Discrimination Case

The founder of the female-only app Giggle for Girls has lost an appeal against an earlier ruling that found she discriminated against a male-to-female trans person after blocking her from her app.

In 2024, the Federal Court of Australia found Giggle app owner Sall Grover had “indirectly discriminated” against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle by denying her access to the app based on her appearance in her profile photo.

Grover was then order to pay Tickle $10,000 (US$7,200) in damages, with the court finding that the discrimination occurred despite Tickle holding a female birth certificate in Queensland after undergoing gender surgery.

The judge also found that the meaning of “sex” could change.

The judge said the concept of sex had broadened “especially by reason of the wide scope that now exists for legally changing the sex of a person on official birth records.”

However, Grover appealed the court’s decision, with the outcome of that appeal—alongside Tickle’s counter-appeal—determined on May 15, 2026.

The full bench of the Federal Court, led by Justice Melissa Perry, dismissed Grover’s appeal while upholding Tickle’s cross-appeal, finding that Grover’s conduct constituted direct discrimination rather than “indirect discrimination.”

While indirect discrimination is generally said to arise from situations where there was no purposeful intent to discriminate, direct discrimination is considered more straightforward.

As a result of her failed appeal, Grover was ordered to pay Tickle total damages of $20,000, including an additional $10,000 awarded on appeal.

She will also have to pay Tickle’s court costs up to a maximum of $50,000 and cross-appeal costs up to a maximum of $50,000.

The court noted that Grover, and Giggle for Girls Proprietary Limited, engaged in unlawful direct discrimination against Tickle by excluding her from the app on the basis of her gender-related appearance, by refusing to restore Tickle’s access to the app, and by treating Tickle less favourably than a woman designated female at birth.

Women’s Advocates Express Concern

Women’s Forum Australia spokeswoman Stephanie Bastiaan said the outcome was a “shock to women across the country.”

“It’s important to note the court expressly said it was only applying the Sex Discrimination Act as it is written—it is ‘not empowered to give effect to its own view’ about whether that law is desirable,” she wrote on X.

Bastiaan then blamed the outcome on the former Gillard Labor government, arguing it had undermined the legal framework.

“In 2013, Julia Gillard’s Australian Labor government amended the Sex Discrimination Act—stripping the meaning out of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ and adding gender identity as a protected attribute to be pitted against biological sex,” she said.

“Today’s outcome is proof of what those amendments have done—women are left with no meaningful rights or recognition under the Sex Discrimination Act—a bitter irony, given that protecting women was the very purpose of the act under our commitment to CEDAW [Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women].”

In a statement on social media, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson said she was “disgusted” by the court’s decision.

“It flies in the face of biological reality, and strips rights from women,” she said.

“Women’s spaces are not being protected and are no longer safe.

“I will back Sall Grover in parliament.”

Hanson has vowed to continue her fight to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to “reflect biological reality.”