A transgender woman has won a landmark appeal after judges found she faced direct discrimination when removed from a female-only networking app.

The Full Court of the Federal Court has ruled in favour of transgender woman Roxanne Tickle, finding female-only app founder Sall Grover directly discriminated against her twice when she chose to remove Ms Tickle from the networking app.

In August 2024, Ms Grover was ordered to pay $10,000 in damages after the Federal Court found she indirectly discriminated against Ms Tickle when she removed Ms Tickle from the app Giggles for Girls, designed to be a “safe, online space exclusively for women”.

Ms Tickle was originally given access to the app after an AI software test designed to filter out male users cleared her.

However, Ms Grover personally removed her after seeing her profile in 2021.

Despite her attempts to be readmitted to the app, Ms Tickle was denied by Ms Grover.

Taking to X, Ms Grover said she was “absolutely devastated”.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said she was “disgusted’ by the court's decision.

“I will back Sall Grover in parliament,” she wrote.

Friday’s result was disappointing for many women “fighting for biological rights of women”, opposition spokesperson for women Melissa McIntosh said.

“The issue is the Sex Discrimination Act,” she said on X.

“It is time for a review of the Sex Discrimination Act. Our laws should be working for Australian women, not against them.”

Both Senator Hanson and Ms McIntosh were quick to claim their parties had attempted to amend the Act.

Court appeal

At the original hearing in 2024, Federal Court Justice Robert Bromwich found Ms Grover had excluded Ms Tickle for not looking “sufficiently female”, and therefore indirectly discriminated against her.

Ms Grover filed an appeal against the decision in October 2024, which was heard in August last year before justices Melissa Perry, Geoffrey Kennett and Wendy Abraham.

In her appeal Ms Grover argued sex, under the Sex Discrimination Act, was “binary and immutable”, with Ms Tickle positing sex was instead non-binary and changeable.

Ms Grover argued Justice Bromwich failed to consider the broader context of the Sex Discrimination Act, claiming the Giggle app female-only policy addressed disadvantages uniquely felt by women in the digital world and was therefore not discriminatory.

Ms Tickle also appealed parts of the 2024 ruling, seeking a finding of direct discrimination, rather than indirect discrimination, on two accounts and an increase of damages to at least $40,000.

She said Ms Grover had repeatedly misgendered her in the media, causing significant distress.

Ms Tickle’s case was supported in court by Sex Discrimination commissioner Anna Cody and endorsed by the Australian Human Rights Commission and LGBTQI+ group Equality Australia.

Ms Grover’s case was crowd-funded, with support from the Lesbian Action Group who are currently fighting for the legal right to exclude transgender women from their events.

On Friday, Justice Melissa Perry delivered the Full Court’s judgment.

Justice Perry set aside Justice Bromwich’s original decision, ruling instead that Ms Grover had directly discriminated against Ms Tickle on the basis of her “gender-related appearance” on two occasions – when Ms Grover initially removed Ms Tickle from the app, and when she refused to reinstate her upon Ms Tickle’s request.

On behalf of the court, Justice Perry said Ms Grover had treated Ms Tickle “less favourably” than a biological woman.

She said whether the app was designed with “the purpose of achieving equality between men and women” was unimportant to the decision of whether it was discriminatory to Ms Tickle.

Ms Grover and the Giggle App were ordered to pay a higher total of $20,000 in damages to Ms Tickle alongside court costs for the appeal and Ms Tickle’s cross appeal up to $50,000.

The damages were ordered to be paid within 60 days.

Ahead of the appeal in 2025, Harry Potter author JK Rowling gave support for Ms Grover.

“Good luck, Sall, may the best woman (haha) win x” the author posted on X.

Ms Rowling has been criticised for her opinions on transgender women which have been linked to the Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) fringe movement.

She has zealously campaigned against transgender rights in the UK and has voiced support for anti-transgender actions in multiple countries.

In the 2024 proceedings, the court was told Ms Tickle had been presenting as a woman since 2017, undertaking gender-affirming care in the ensuing years.

Her birth certificate lists her as female, being reissued in 2020.