Roxanne Tickle has spoken of an “exhausting” five-year legal battle after Australia’s highest court refused to hear an appeal by the founder of a female-only networking app.
The High Court of Australia rejected Sall Grover’s application for special leave to appeal and ordered her to pay Ms Tickle’s legal costs, bringing the latest stage of the discrimination case to an end.
Ms Grover had sought to overturn a finding that she discriminated against Ms Tickle by banning her from the Giggle for Girls app in 2021. Her appeal had already been dismissed by the Federal Court in May, which doubled the damages awarded to Ms Tickle to $20,000 and ordered Ms Grover to pay legal costs of up to $100,000.
In a statement after the High Court decision, Ms Tickle said the proceedings had been “relentlessly exhausting” physically and emotionally for her and many others.
“I hope that yesterday’s High Court special leave refusal provides clarity to the protections in law for transgender and gender diverse people in Australia, and perhaps provides a beacon of light to the rest of the world,” she said.
Ms Tickle also sent a message of support to transgender and gender-diverse people and their families, adding: “May we all learn that just being different is not grounds for you to be ridiculed, attacked, feared or hated, but that instead you are providing a little something extra to the world.”
She said: “Life is not easy. Let’s all be kinder to each other and we might all enjoy it a little more.”
Ms Grover, who said there were no further legal avenues available to her, indicated that she intended to leave Australia and establish her business overseas. She later said she remained determined to continue her campaign.
“I’m ok, angry & sad, but ok, and the fight isn’t over,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “A marathon runner doesn’t give up at kilometer 30, and neither do I. We’re in this together.”
The case has divided public opinion in Australia, with some critics arguing that the ruling undermined women’s rights while others backed Ms Tickle.
Ms Grover said she wanted to leave the country because she had “no respect for the judiciary” and would not live under what she described as an “authoritarian nonsense ideology”.
She claimed the High Court’s decision effectively required Australians to “adhere to transgender ideology” or face punishment, and argued that women still needed legal protections based on sex.
The court’s two-sentence explanation said there was “no reason to doubt the Full Court’s construction” and that any appeal had “insufficient prospects of success”. Ms Grover said that reasoning “makes no sense”.
Lawyers for Giggle for Girls had argued during the case that the app was exempt from discrimination law because it aimed to achieve substantial equality between men and women. They said it was intended to provide a safe space for women.
