The Federal Court of Australia has ordered a social network exclusively for women to pay 10,000 Australian dollars (6,066 euros) to a transsexual woman. Roxanne Tickle She registered on the platform and was accepted for use, however, after a while her permission was denied because she was considered a man.
It was in 2021 when Tickel downloaded the app Giggle for Girls (Giggles for Girls, in Spanish), an app known for being a safe space for women and excluding men.
During the registration, the trans woman uploaded a selfie to a system of App facial recognition to verify your gender. The photograph was accepted by a software specialized in gender recognition and specifically tailored to reject users who were male.
Tickle began to enjoy Giggle for Girls without any problems. But after seven months everything changed. His membership in the social network was revoked and he was no longer able to use the platform, which led to the complaint.
Roxanne Tickle denounced for being discriminated against for their gender identity and claimed that she had every right to be able to use the services of the social network, which was exclusively for women. She sued the platform and its director, Sall Grover.
He initially asked for compensation of 200,000 Australian dollars (121,321 euros) for the damages suffered. She even claimed that the “confusion” about her sex caused her “anxiety and suicidal thoughts”.
The social network claimed, however, that sex is a biological concept and that the sexual discrimination against Tickle was “legitimate” because the app was precisely designed to exclude men.
The judge did not accept the argument of the social network’s lawyers and pointed out that Australian jurisprudence considers that sex can be “changeable and not necessarily binary”. The platform was therefore ordered to pay Roxanne Tickle 10,000 Australian dollars, an amount far below the 200,000 that the trans woman requested.
