Banning a transgender woman from a female-only app was unlawful discrimination, a court has found in the landmark Tickle vs Giggle gender identity case.

The Federal Court on Friday dismissed an appeal by Giggle app founder Sall Grover and instead upheld the cross-appeal by transgender woman Roxanne Tickle.

The court also doubled the damages awarded to Ms Tickle from $10,000 to $20,000, and ordered Ms Grover to pay Ms Tickle’s legal costs up to $100,000.

The case came when Ms Tickle was rejected from joining the woman-only Giggle app because she was judged to appear to be a man in a selfie submitted to the app.

The court found the conduct amounted to ‘direct discrimination’ under Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act.

‘Giggle and Ms Grover both excluded Ms Tickle from the Giggle app and refused to readmit her on the basis of her gender-related appearance,’ Justice Melissa Perry said, delivering the decision.

‘This amounted to direct discrimination by reference to a characteristic that pertains to people of Ms Tickle’s gender identity as a transgender woman.

‘[It was] treating Ms Tickle less favourably than a woman designated female at birth.’ 

The court said the case involved issues that divide public opinion, but stressed its role was simply to interpret and apply the Sex Discrimination Act.

Under the Sex Discrimination Act, it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender identity, sexual orientation or intersex status.

The landmark ruling could also have implications for other women-only spaces and is likely to reignite debate over the definition of a woman.

The judgment now lays the groundwork for a second appeal, with Ms Grover set to take the case to the High Court.

‘I would like … there to be legislators that stepped in actually did their job and fixed because they could fix this for free in a week,’ she told News Corp.

‘But if I have to go to the High Court, I will.’

Ms Tickle was blocked from the Giggle app in September 2021 on the basis of her gender, despite a birth certificate listing her as female, the court was told during a series of often-heated hearings in April 2024.

Giggle’s barrister Bridie Nolan claimed Ms Tickle was a man, so it was lawful to exclude her from the app because of provisions in the Sex Discrimination Act.

But Ms Tickle, who was assigned male at birth, had undergone gender-affirming surgery and hormone treatments, identified as a woman with her family, friends and at work, and used women’s change rooms and shopped in women’s clothing departments, her lawyer Georgina Costello said.

‘Up until this instance, everybody has treated me as a woman,’ Ms Tickle said previously.

She had sought $200,000 in compensation, half of which was based on aggravated damages after an online campaign waged by Ms Grover.

The court was told Ms Grover had persistently misgendered Ms Tickle in media interviews and across hundreds of posts about the case made to her 93,000 online followers.

This resulted in an ‘enormous’ amount of hate directed at Ms Tickle, Ms Costello said.

Justice Robert Bromwich ruled in 2024 that ‘sex is changeable’ and non-binary, arguing the understanding of sex had broadened over the three decades since the Sex Discrimination Act was enacted.

During an appeal hearing in August, lawyers for the app argued it was exempt from discrimination law because it sought to achieve substantial equality between men and women.

Its intention was to create a ‘safe space’ for women, Ms Grover’s lawyers said.

But this was challenged by lawyers from the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, who argued ‘invidious discrimination’ could be permitted under the guise of a special measure.

Ms Grover previously slammed the court’s logic.

‘This is not a culture war; this is about the fundamental human rights of women and girls,’ Ms Grover said. 

‘Women fought for generations to have spaces free from male presence – whether in crisis shelters, prisons, sports or social networks. 

‘That right has now been stripped away by an activist legal interpretation that compels women to accept men in female-only spaces and punishes them for objecting. That is not progress; that is oppression.’

Ms Grover has the support of Harry Potter author and prominent gender critical activist JK Rowling.