- 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.
While I certainly agree with you that discrimination based on sex is unacceptable im most contexts, I believe that gender exclusive spaces, unless they hinder people directly, sometimes are a good thing.
My dad is a mental health professional and founded a weekly ‘only-men’ self help group. He found that some things they talked about there wouldn’t have worked with women involved. That group existed for about 5 years or so and helped quite a few struggling men.
So yeah, unless there’s any maliciousness involved, I’d argue that gender exclusiity is not bad in every context.
If women have gender exclusive spaces, men also should have them. Women have invaded male spaces for decades.
That’s a bit different. A little private group is not a for-profit company. The difference between not being invited to a family only event when you aren’t family and not being allowed into a restaurant chain because of your race.
