Bombshell Decision On Gender Law

Australian law is now set in stone: Men can become women and sex is not purely biological.

The only way that can be changed is by a federal government amending current legislation which lacks a clear legal definition of a ‘woman’ and a ‘man’.

This is the situation because Australia’s highest court has just refused to grant Giggle for Girls app founder Sall Grover special leave to appeal the case brought against her by Roxanne Tickle who identifies as a woman.

Ms. Grover had been seeking to overturn a Federal Court finding that she directly discriminated against Roxanne Tickle on the basis of “gender identity”, by rejecting an application to join the female-only networking app.

Shock Refusal To Hear Appeal 

The High Court had been widely expected to allow the appeal which raised fundamental questions about the legal rights of women and transgender people.

But on Thursday (September 10), it announced it was refusing to hear the case with costs awarded against Ms. Grover.

In a two sentence explanation of its decision, the Court said: “There is no reason to doubt the Full Court’s construction of s. 7D (1) and (2) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). “

“Any appeal dependent on the demonstration of error in the Full Court’s construction of those provisions has insufficient prospects of success to warrant a grant of special leave to appeal.”

“We Need Politicians To Fix This”

Ms. Grover told The Australian she was “absolutely devastated” by the decision.

“We now have confirmation that the High Court is captured by an ideology, as is the Federal Court, and so we need politicians to fix this,” she said.

“We have a government that won’t, but we have rising ­opposition to this kind of ideology being imposed upon people.”

“Everybody is now at the mercy of Australian Human Rights Commission complaints if you don’t go along with this.”

“No one is safe because if you are deemed to have discriminated against a man who claims to be a woman, you have no legal ­recourse.”

Legal Arguments That Were Rejected

During the Federal Court proceedings, Ms. Grover argued that sex is a purely biological, binary concept fixed at birth, and asserted that her app was a lawful “special measure” designed to achieve substantive equality between men and women.

The Full Court rejected that argument, ruling that taking a special measure to promote equality for one protected group does not provide a legal shield to expressly disadvantage another marginalised group.

In her application for special leave to appeal to the High Court, Ms. Grover’s lawyers had contended Roxanne Tickle was not a woman within the meaning of the Sex Discrimination Act.

They argued Ms. Grover’s exclusion of biological men, even if they identified as women, was therefore a “special measure” permitted under the act.

The High Court wasn’t convinced.

The Fight Will Continue

Sall Grover told The Australian she had no intention of ending her fight.

“The law is wrong and the Australian courts have humiliated themselves while the US has been fixing this politically and in the courts, and while the UK has fixed this in the courts.”

“Australia – which could have been a world leader in bringing reality back – has doubled down and gone in the complete opposite direction.”

Ms. Grover said she was looking at other options around the world for running her business.

“But for women in Australia who are relying on single-sex services or the school girls who can’t use bathrooms, who have these giant men in their sports teams – are they all supposed to leave?”