The judgement is out for Sall Grover’s ‘Tickle v Giggle’ court case, and it means that Australian women have NO female-only sanctuaries anymore.

It wasn’t unexpected, but it was still gut-wrenching to hear a judge decide that women in Australia can no longer have female-only sanctuaries. None whatsoever, not for any reason. No man can be refused entry to any women’s space if he says he’s a woman. It’s that simple - and absolutely unconscionable for a judge to condemn the entire population of women in Australia to that.

It also means that men can’t have their own sanctuaries, either, but the ramifications of that are vastly different than they are for women, of course.

Today, I watched the Australian Federal Court livestream where the judgement was handed out re: Sall Grover’s ‘Tickle v Giggle’ legal case¹. A man who says he’s a woman, and who goes by the name of Roxanne Tickle, took Sall Grover to court for not allowing him access to her women-only multi-purpose app called Giggle. The judge decided that Sall was guilty of indirect gender-identity discrimination against the man who says he’s a woman – i.e. Tickle - and ordered her to pay AUD$10K to this man, as well as court costs capped at AUD$50K.

Staggeringly, the judge – who I daresay has seen many times exactly the how the physical differences between women and men can play out – stated that, according to several other court cases from around the world, sex is changeable. I doubt he has ever seen a person change their sex to back up the veracity of this statement in any way, shape, or form. However, if legal paperwork can be obtained to say a person now considers themself a different sex to that which they were born, this judge decreed that they have actually changed their sex.

Sall did the wholly human thing of looking at Tickle’s photo on her Giggle app after he had gained access to it, ascertained he was male from his face, so removed him. Who knows what filters Tickle used to fool the initial facial recognition software, but he didn’t fool Sall once she spotted him. She used her human software to clock him as the man he is. Humans have looked at faces since the dawn of time for clues and cues on who we are. This is wired into us. The judge, though, considered that Sall only decided Tickle was a man because he didn’t “appear to be a cisgendered female in photos”. Yes, the judge not only used the terms ‘cisgender’ and ‘transgender’ throughout his judgement, but appeared to have no, or little, understanding of how we are wired to process faces to determine women from men.

(I would hazard a guess that this isn’t the photo Tickle used to gain access to the Giggle app :-) )

This travesty of justice for women is what we can expect here in New Zealand if the word ‘gender’ is put into our Human Rights Act, so we must all do all we can to resist that².

I can only imagine the devastation that Sall is feeling right now, as many of us are, both for her and what it means for women on a wider scale, even if the judgement wasn’t entirely unforeseen. After having made this tweet, I hope she’ll take some time out to restore her energy and spirits. She deserves it.

Naturally, transactivists will be crowing at Tickle’s win in court. However, Sall always made it clear that she’ll take this fight to the High Court if she lost in Federal Court. Here is her crowdfunder to help her, and all of us, with that if you’re able to give anything -

GiveSendGo | Reclaim sex based rights for women and girls

¹Tickle v Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd (No 2) [2024] FCA 960 (fedcourt.gov.au)

² “Don’t put ‘gender’ into law - it’s a terrible idea”, the Women’s Rights Party & Mana Wāhine Kōrero tell NZ’s Law Commission. (substack.com)