Giggle v Tickle (Appeal)

The Federal Court of Australia online file resource for theTickle v Giggle case can be found here; the online file for the  Giggle v Tickle (Appeal) discussed below can be found here. Our report on the other Federal Court case about sex-based reality in the recent judgment in LAG v AHRC can be found here.

Sall Grover, the owner of the women-only app Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd, has lost her appeal to the Federal Court of Australia.Tickle won his cross-appeal.

The judgment was handed down on 15 May 2026 by a panel of three judges:

* Justice Melissa Ann Perry

* Justice Wendy Jane Abraham 

* Justice Geoffrey Ross Kennett

The judgment was confined within the existing Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) as amended in 2013, which incorporated “gender identity” as a characteristic, confused the terms “sex” with “gender,” and objective fact with subjective interpretations. The Act equates “gender” with “sex,” and replaces definitions of sex with nonsense definitions of gender, based on a circuitous definition of “gender identity” that rejects “sex” and yet is determined by being in oppposition to it, and confuses objective and subjective meanings of “identity.”

That confusion is due to the Act having incorporated concepts and terms of gender ideology, a set of contentious and logically inconsistent ideas designed to politically challenge the social fabric of modern society, and its Enlightenment values and beliefs in scientific knowledge, rationality, sex-based differences in human biology and behaviour, and societal progress.

The judgment declared:

1. “Sally Grover and Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd, engaged in unlawful direct discrimination against the respondent, Ms Roxanne Tickle, on the ground of her gender identity, contrary to s 22 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), when read with s 5B(1) of that Act, by:

(a)    excluding Ms Tickle from access to the Giggle App on the basis of her gender-related appearance;

(b)    refusing to restore Ms Tickle’s access to the Giggle App on the basis of her gender-related appearance; and

(c)    thereby treating Ms Tickle, who is a transgender woman, less favourably than a person designated female at birth seeking access to the Giggle App.”

2. Sall was to pay damages of “$20,000 within 60 days to Tickle” plus “costs of the appeal as agreed or assessed, up to a maximum of $50,000”.

3. Sall was also ordered to pay the costs of Tickle’s “cross-appeal as agreed or assessed, up to a maximum of $50,000”

The judgment revealed how gender ideology has penetrated deeply within Australian law, making it impossible to lawfully retain a material understanding of binary sex in human biology and how that may be interpreted in sexually discriminatory acts, such as unjust discrimination against a woman or a person with a “gender identity.”

Indeed, the judgment confirmed the significant loss of understanding in the original intention of the Act to protect women against discrimination on the basis fo their sex, which occurred with the amendments to the SDA in 2013, when it noted:

 ““Sex” is not defined in the SDA. Originally, “man” was defined in s 4 as “a member of the male sex” and “woman” as “a member of the female sex”. These definitions were repealed by the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Act 2013 (Cth) (the 2013 Amending Act).”

It should be noted further that, while the definitions of “sex” were deleted in the SDA, the revised Act still retains the word “sex”, such as in:

1 the very title of the Act: Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual
Orientation, Gender Identity and
Intersex Status) Act 2013

2. it introduces the phrase “sexual orientation”, which is defined as:

a person’s sexual orientation towards:
(a) persons of the same sex; or
(b) persons of a different sex; or
(c) persons of the same sex and persons of a different sex; and

3. the definition of the alleged new characteristic “gender identity” references a distinction from a “person’s designated sex at birth” in its definition, which gives precedence to sociocultural and behavioural representations of sex beyond its innate biological determinants:

gender identity means the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of a person
(whether by way of medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the person’s designated sex at birth.

All these require a definition of sex to have been retained, and have no doubt contributed to the conflation of the words “sex”, “gender” and “identity:”

• “sex” for describing objective fact in the innate characteristics of biological differences in human male and female reproductive structure and function;
• “gender” in terms of observed performance of variable and socioculturally specific sex role stereotypes , and
• “identity”, which can be:
  • a socially imposed  understanding of the sex of an individual; or
  • a physical document that authorises designated characteristics (sex, name, place  of birth); or
  • an individual’s subjective understanding of their sex that may or not be understood by others.

The judgement in the appeal case found that Tickle had been ubjected to direct discrimination because: “knowledge or suspicion of an aggrieved person’s gender identity is not a necessary condition of direct discrimination, it may further clarify the “reason,”and “for discriminatory conduct. … Ms Grover decided not to readmit Ms Tickle based on her perception that Ms Tickle had the physical gender-related appearance of a man and, therefore on the basis of a protected characteristic generally appertaining, or imputed generally, to a transgender woman such as Ms Tickle.”

Such a judgment does not allow for disagreement with the legal definition of “gender identity” nor for concerns about documented evidence of male pattern violence against women.

This confusion of objective fact (“sex”, official authorising documents, sex-based data on male violent behaviour) and subjective interpretations of fact (“gender”) have arisen because of  the legal adoption of the definitional confusion in gender ideology.

Moreover,  the primary judge acknowledged that the term “cisgender,” introduced by the applicant (Tickle) but disputed by the respondents (Giggle and Grover), was not in the Act. Nevertheless the primary judge accepted, explained and used the term, “cisgender woman” in his judgment. And, again, the appeal judgment included the term “ciswoman” and defined it:

“The term “cisgender woman” appears to have been used here to denote a person who was designated female at birth and whose gender (or perhaps gender identity) corresponds to their sex registered at birth. The primary judge understood the expression in this way (at J [4]).”

“Assigned sex” is a linguistic tool for political purposes, to destabilise the material reality of a biological fact (“born male”) into merely an opinion. Similarly, “cisgender” is a linguistic tool used by gender identity advocates for undermining the concept of a sex binary; a woman becomes a-woman-who-is-not-transgender, reinforcing that there is another kind of woman (a better kind?): a transgender woman.

In addition, “intersex” is favoured by gender identity advocates for political purposes but is not accurate; “Intersex” individuals do comprise a wide range of  variations in characteristics but not a spectrum of gender or sex.

Medicine prefers the term DSD (Disorders of Sexual development). There are those with rare chromosomal variations (eg, Klinefelter syndrome in males with sex chromosomes XXY, 1:599 to 1000 males; and Turner syndrome in females with only one X chromosome, 1:2000 females) (NSW Centre for Genetic Education 2025). Note that they are still considered sexed according to the female/male binary. A more prevalent variation is found in males born with hypospiades (incidence 1:150 of male babies). Hypospiades occcurs when the opening of the urethra is not located at the tip of the penis, but somewhere below, along the shaft of the penis, from which the urine is emitted. It is usually corrected by surgery (Royal Children’s Hospital 2018). Note that males with hypospiades are still considered sexed according to the female/male binary, and do not support the claim that there is a gender spectrum. 

The term “intersex” is contested by other advocates, who joined with medical experts in 2005 at a “consensus conference,” to produce a Consensus Statement declaring an alternative term for intersex: Disorders of Sex Development (DSD). The Consensus Statement can be seen as a linguistic tool for enrolling the medical establishment as allies, using their medical authority to legitimate activist goals and resolve dissent in their favour. But that strategic tool has been effective largely among  health professionals only; many activists object to the effect of being medicalised as a “disorder” and, for that reason,  have proposed replacement of DSD with VSD (Variations in Sexual Development), while others do not (yet?) want to relinquish their intersex identity (Sandberg & Gardner 2022). Those latter views may well change when gender identity ideology has been fully discredited.

Another example of a consensus statement used as a political strategy by activists is the WPATH clinical guidelines for best practice in gender medicine. The guidelines came into disrepute following the release of leaked internal documents that showed the massive influence of activists, who had made “the world-leading transgender healthcare group … neither scientific nor advocating for ethical medical care” (Hughes 2024). Will a similar fate afflict the activist-aligned DSD Consensus Statement?

The legal terrain becomes ever more confused and politicised. We have traveled with the Giggle v Tickle (Appeal)  judgment over the rainbow into the  Land of Oz, sucked into the vortex (see Hawthorne 2020) of a tornado where truth and material facts disappear. In their place is scattered a chaos of amplified opinion, concepts and language from the wishful and confused thinking of gender ideology. Added to the chaos are citations in the judgment referring to other judgments that have also incorporated concepts and language from gender ideology,  dressed up as evidential precedents. How did a well-educated legal fraternity become so deluded? 

Below are biographies of the three judges. Perhaps they might help us better understand how their education and legal career path led them to become so confused about sex and gender.

Sall Grover has announced she will appeal to the High Court. But she may well not succeed unless the SDA is first amended to once again reflect the material reality of the human sexed body.

Our task is necessary and urgent: a campaign to educate our Federal Members  of Parliament and the Australian public. Will you join us? Lesbian safety and culture depend on it.

Contact CoAL at admin@coal.org.au.)

References

Hawthorne, Susan 2020, , Vortex. The Crisis of Patriarchy, Spinifex Press, Melbourne

Hughes, Mia 202), The WPATH Files. Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents, and Vulnerable Adults, Environmental Progress, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56a45d683b0be33df885def6/t/6602fa875978a01601858171/1711471262073/WPATH+Report+and+Files111.pdf. 

NSW Centre for Genetic Education 2025, “Klinefelter Syndrome”, https://www.genetics.edu.au/SitePages/Klinefelter-Syndrome.aspx.

NSW Centre for Genetic Education 2025,”Turner syndrome,” https://www.genetics.edu.au/PDF/Turner_syndrome_fact_sheet-CGE.pdf.

Royal Children’s Hospital 2018, “Hypospadias,” https://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/fact_sheets/hypospadias/.

Sandberg, David E. & Gardner, Melissa 2022, “Differences/Disorders of Sex Development: Medical Conditions at the Intersection of Sex and Gender,” Annu Rev Clin Psychol., Feb Vol/ 2, No.18, pp.201–231. doi: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081219-101412,  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10170864/#R97.

World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) 2022, “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8,International Journal of Transgender Health, , Vol. 23, No. S1, S1–S258, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wijt21/23/s2013

* * * * *