- In short: Transgender woman Roxanne Tickle is suing social media platform Giggle for Girls after she was excluded from the women-only app.
- She is alleging unlawful discrimination on the basis of gender identity while the app’s founder has denied she is a woman.
- What’s next? The hearing is expected to run for four days.
A transgender woman who was excluded from a women-only social media app should be awarded damages because the app’s founder has persistently denied she is a woman, a Sydney court has heard.
In February 2021, Roxanne Tickle downloaded the Giggle for Girls social networking app, which was marketed as a platform exclusively for women to share experiences and speak freely.
Users needed to provide a selfie, which was assessed by artificial intelligence software to determine if they were a woman or man.
Ms Tickle’s photograph was determined to be a woman and she used the app’s full features until September that year, when the account became restricted because the AI decision was manually overridden.
Even the fuckin’ robot was smarter than TERFs.
No idea how this will play out in Australia. In the US she’d probably lose… because there’s outright neo-Nazi forums like Stormfront, and no chance Jewish users can sue for equal treatment. The Aussies would presumably break it up for being a bunch of fucking Nazis. That’s not especially indicative here.
For a private nonprofit affair I could see any country potentially upholding this. Freedom of association comes before a lot of other rights. You can host whatever little club fits in your living room. Extending that to a public building obviously has tolerable examples. You can say “Jewish users only.” It’s called a synagogue. But if you call it a marketplace and try to do business there then you’re gonna have a bad time.