An Australian judge ruled on Friday that the owner of a women-only social networking platform discriminated against women by removing a transgender woman from the app because she was born male.
Reuters reports that Roxanne Tickle has sued Australian app Giggle for Girls and its founder Sally Glover, alleging unlawful gender identity discrimination in the app's service.
The lawsuit alleges that Glover removed Tickle's account from the platform after seeing photos of her and “determined she was a man.”
In a landmark ruling on gender identity in Australia, the Federal Court (the country's second highest court) ordered Giggle for Girls to pay Tickle 10,000 Australian dollars (US$6,700) plus legal costs.
Judge Robert Bromwich, who presided over the trial, declined to order Giggle for Girls to issue a written apology as requested by Ms Tickle.
“Mr Tickle's claim of direct gender identity discrimination failed, but his claim of indirect gender identity discrimination was successful,” Mr Bromwich said.
This is the first time that the Federal Court has ruled on gender identity discrimination since the Sex Discrimination Act was amended in 2013.
Monash University law professor Paula Gerber said the ruling was “a major victory for transgender women in Australia”.
“This case sends a clear message to all Australians that it is unlawful to treat transgender women differently to cisgender women. It is unlawful to judge whether someone is a woman based on whether they look feminine,” she said.
The platform, Giggle for Girls, was advertised as a “safe space” where women could share and discuss their experiences.
Reuters reported that the platform had about 20,000 users in 2021, according to court documents.
The company temporarily suspended operations in 2022, but Glover said the platform will be relaunching soon.
In the ruling, the judge argued that the platform considers only sex assigned at birth as a valid basis for a person to claim to be male or female.
Bromwich said the plaintiff was born male and underwent gender reassignment surgery before Tickle's birth certificate was updated.
“Unfortunately, we [judgment] “As expected,” Glover said in X's post.
“The fight for women's rights continues.”
Tickle reportedly called the judge's decision “healing” after receiving hateful comments online and seeing merchandise specifically designed to mock her.
“There is so much hate and malice directed towards transgender and gender diverse people simply because of who we are,” Australian media quoted her as saying outside court.
Reuters contributed to this report.