Almost 150 years ago, the famed British jurist A. V. Dicey wrote that sovereign parliaments ‘can do everything but make a man a woman, and a woman a man’. Yet in Australia, Britain and elsewhere, parliaments now have done just that. Ideological and legislative contortions over biological sex and gender fluidity have created concomitant absurdities, something crystallised by an Australian court case attracting global attention: the improbably-named Giggle v Tickle.
Roxanne Tickle was born male but identifies as female. Tickle had gender reassignment surgery and erased her birth name, with a new birth certificate.
Sall Grover is an Australian businesswoman running an online safe space for women called Giggle. She vets who applies to join Giggle. Tickle applied, providing a selfie for identification. Grover reviewed the photo and determined Tickle was not a woman; Tickle took Grover to court, and in 2024 not just won the case, but was awarded exemplary damages because Grover was amused by something in court, to which Tickle had taken offence.
Earlier this month, the full court of the Federal Court of Australia – equivalent to England’s Court of Appeal – handed down its decision. The full court not only upheld the trial judge’s decision that Tickle was unfairly and unlawfully discriminated against by Grover and Giggle, but the exemplary damages award against was doubled.
