- 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.
Real /r/unpopularopinion moment.
I think the thing that the TERFs ultimately miss is that this person was initially welcomed in as a woman and treated as a woman by her peers. She did not disrupt the community or harass any of the participants, until she voiced support for Trans Rights.
It was at this point that a handful of moderators decided to interrogate her on her original gender and use that as an excuse to boot an active and in-good-standing member.
So she wasn’t removed for “not being a woman”. She was removed for “disagreeing with the political views of the admin”.
Anyone familiar with Reddit politics should be able to sympathize.