Transgender woman Roxanne Tickle wants Giggle app founder Sall Grover to pay her at least $40,000 because the female-only platform creator laughed in court when shown a caricature of Tickle during cross-examination in a sex discrimination hearing last year.
Grover and her Giggle platform are appealing a Federal Court ruling last year that they indirectly discriminated against Ms Tickle when they rejected her (sic) from the app because she did not appear to be female.
Tickle is also appealing parts of that decision, arguing judge Robert Bromwich should have found she (sic) was the victim of direct, rather than indirect, discrimination.
Tickle claims she (sic) should have been awarded aggravated damages because Grover “engaged in a sustained attack on Ms Tickle’s integrity and gender identity, infused with innuendo that Ms Tickle, and indeed transgender women more generally, pose a threat or danger to cisgender women”.
Tickle also complains about “the constant and continual misgendering of Ms Tickle by Ms Grover and Giggle throughout the earlier proceedings” as well as Grover’s “campaign” based on gender identity.
Grover’s appeal team will claim that Justice Bromwich failed to consider the broader context of the Sex Discrimination Act, arguing that the app’s female-only policy was a special measure intended to address the unique disadvantages faced by women in digital spaces, and thus should not be considered discriminatory.
But Tickle argues in her (sic) submission that there was no evidence presented that women experienced “persistent sex-based disadvantage in digital environments … The evidence sought to be relied upon rises no higher than a collection of self–serving affidavits of some women who gave evidence in vague and overly generalised terms of their varied online experiences”.
The appeal and cross-appeal will be heard over four days from August 4 in the Full Court of the Federal Court, before judges Melissa Perry, Geoffrey Kennett and Wendy Abraham.
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