- 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.
We all accept that trans women are not cis women. The obvious point by the poster was why is it okay to discriminate against men but not trans women?
I’m just pointing out the obvious difference between the two categories: one is based on gender the other is based on sex. It’s like asking: “if they’re allowed to discriminate on gender, then why not this other instance (that is based on sex)?” But without making what is in the parenthesis explicit - when someone responds “trans women are women” they are saying what is in the parenthesis.
So it’s okay to discriminate based on sex, but not gender? I don’t see how this really addresses the point.
I’m not directly addressing whether it’s okay but that there are categorical differences in the examples given. We might as well ask why we can’t discriminate based on hair color, since that too is categorically different than gender. That being said, bathrooms discriminate based on gender and not sex, so maybe ask why people think that is okay.
