A court has been asked to define what a woman is as a landmark gender identity discrimination case comes to a close in front of a packed gallery of trans and women’s rights campaigners in Sydney.
Tickle is seeking damages and aggravated damages amounting to $200,000. Her team claims discrimination took place when Grover and Giggle – represented by the former Liberal candidate Katherine Deves – did not respond to her request for access and reinstatement to the app. She was also discriminated against when she was removed from the app, the court heard.
Grover has more than 90,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, and has given up to 50 media interviews in which she has persistently misgendered Tickle, the court heard. Her legal costs are in part funded by the sale of merchandise that is “demeaning” to Tickle.
Grover had previously told the court that she would not address Tickle as “Ms” and that, even if a transgender woman presented as female, had gender affirmation surgery, lived as a female and held female identity documents, Grover would still see her as a “biological male”.
At the heart of the case are definitions of gender and sex and the boundaries of the Sex Discrimination Act. The outcome is likely to have wide-reaching implications for male and female spaces and activities.
To aid in navigating that complexity, the Australian Human Rights Commission acted as a friend of the court. The barrister Zelie Heger told the court on Wednesday that sex was no longer defined in the Sex Discrimination Act, but that “importantly, the act recognises that a person’s sex is not limited to [being a man or a woman]”.
An “11th hour” submission by the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls was deemed “completely unacceptable” by Bromwich.