The Tickle v Giggle case has become a defining moment in Australian discrimination law, crystallising fundamental tensions around sex and gender. As an appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court gets underway, two vastly different ideas have emerged about how women’s spaces should be defined and protected: Equality Australia’s, and the Lesbian Action Group’s.
But what has manifested most starkly is how organisations claiming to advocate for lesbian rights have positioned themselves against the actual interests of lesbian women, prioritising the sexual and identity interests of some males over the material reality of female same-sex attraction. The debate is not, however, ‘sex vs gender identity’ as often described, but—at its core—about whether sexual orientation and identity interests must be understood as changing an individual’s sex class, or can and should operate within the fixed boundaries of biological sex.
The law as it stands, and how we got here
‘Giggle for Girls’ was an app founded as a digital safe space for adult females, using facial recognition and other processes to identify likely female users. After initially passing automated checks, a male with a female gender identity, Roxanne Tickle, was subsequently removed by the platform after platform founder Sall Grover determined that Tickle did not meet the app’s requirements for females based on biological sex.
Tickle contested the removal on discrimination grounds, and in August 2024, Justice Bromwich of the Federal Court delivered a decision finding that Tickle had suffered indirect discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA), on the basis of gender identity (it was indirect because Giggle did not know Tickle had a female gender identity). Giggle agreed that it had discriminated on the basis of sex, and that this discrimination was lawful as a special measure under the Act to promote equality and safety for women. But by declaring that “in its contemporary ordinary meaning, sex is changeable,” Bromwich was stating that special measures could not excuse discrimination on the basis of gender identity – an interpretation with far-reaching consequences for women and girls where we are vulnerable because of out sex, such as in prisons, rape crisis centres, changing rooms and online. And it further has troubling ramifications for lesbians if they cannot legally exclude males who claim access to their spaces on the basis of gender identity.
Equality Australia: rights, representation, and who ‘counts’ as lesbian
And this is where the story becomes particularly concerning. Equality Australia, well-known for its strong advocacy in the marriage equality campaign, positions itself as the peak body for the LGBTIQ+ community, asserting particular authority to speak for lesbians. But when the Tickle v Giggle judgment was delivered, CEO Anna Brown celebrated it as a defence of “the original intent” of the Sex Discrimination Act, explicitly supporting open access to women’s spaces for trans-identified males: “Discrimination laws exist to protect all of us, particularly groups such as trans women who have experienced historical exclusion and disadvantage”, Brown stated. The organisation’s position is clear: women’s spaces should be open to “every woman seeking friendship and connection”, explicitly including transgender women.
But here lies the fundamental contradiction as, in practice, this positioning has led Equality Australia to act against the requests and definitions advanced by female-born lesbians themselves.
We now need to head back in time — and to a different matter — to September 2023 when Equality Australia led a coalition of 15 LGBTIQ+ organisations in making a joint submission to the AHRC strongly opposing a request by the Lesbian Action Group for a temporary exemption to the SDA to allow them to hold single-sex, lesbian-only events where ‘female’ would mean female by birth. Anna Brown dismissed the application as a “sad stunt”; the joint submission stated that, although it was “important and beneficial for lesbians to be able to gather as a community,” it was “not appropriate or necessary to exclude same-sex attracted women who are transgender, bisexual and queer in order to do so.”
As the Western Australian Women’s Action Alliance observed at the time, this approach treats “lesbians’ request to hold lesbian-only events and gatherings” as inherently discriminatory, rather than recognising the natural reality of female same-sex attraction. This reveals the disturbing truth: an organisation claiming to represent lesbians actively worked to prevent actual lesbians from meeting together on the basis of their biological sex and same-sex attraction.
The Lesbian Action Group: defining rights from the ground up
The Lesbian Action Group was formed in direct response to lesbians being pushed underground. The group’s application to the AHRC revealed the extent to which lesbian women have been marginalised. They noted that since 2003, they had been “unable to publicly advertise” lesbian gatherings as they had in the past, meaning meetings had become “much smaller in numbers” and they had “very much regretted the ability to reach out to younger lesbians”. As they explained,
Nowadays, Lesbians who publicly speak out about Lesbians rights are also sacked from their jobs, ridiculed and threatened with all kinds of abuse. As they further observe,
The irony of this is that we can now legally marry, but can’t legally assemble in single-sex space.
This sentiment captures the frustration felt by women who believe their rights to female-only association have been interfered with by gender identity protections.
After the AHRC rejected the group’s exemption application, the Lesbian Action Group challenged that ruling in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (now known as the Administrative Review Tribunal), then appealed to the Federal Court. On the back of that pending appeal (now listed for February 2026), they sought—and received—leave to intervene in the Giggle v Tickle Full Court appeal to make arguments for retaining female-only events as a right reserved for biological females.
It is essential to note that the Lesbian Action Group does not reject the existence of identity-based rights, but insists they must operate within sex classes, rather than allowing legal sex to be changed in a way that removes the biological category of ‘female’. The group is not opposed to lesbian-only events defined by sexual or gender identity, provided their own definitions of ‘female’ and ‘lesbian’ are respected.
Equality Australia’s mobilisation against lesbians
But what has Equality Australia to do with any of this? Well, what makes Equality Australia’s position particularly egregious is how it has mobilised a coalition against these lesbian women seeking basic rights of association. The joint submission opposing LAG’s application included not just Equality Australia but 14 other LGBTIQ+ organisations, the Victorian Commissioner for LGBTIQ+ Communities, Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Tasmania, Q+Law, Melbourne Bisexual Network, and various other groups.
Indeed, Brown’s language revealed this coalition’s ideological commitment: the application was described as “deliberately provocative” and “intentionally cruel and divisive”. She claimed it was inappropriate to hold such an event at “one of the few spaces in Victoria intended to be safe and welcoming of the LGBTIQ+ community as a whole”. This claim is unsupportable because, as AAWAA pointed out at the time, there exist a plethora of other event and advocacy opportunities for the LGBTQ community – many of them publicly funded.
The result is that conduct that, not so long ago, would have been clearly protected as an exercise of sexual orientation rights (lesbian-only events), now not only risks being unlawful but is publicly opposed by the very bodies created to protect sexual orientation and anti-discrimination rights.
Equality Australia’s representation: whose interests?
The most damning aspect of Equality Australia’s position, however, is how it claims to represent lesbian interests whilst actively working against them. This represents a form of ideological capture that systematically undermines that group’s core interests, and is most recently demonstrated in its intervention in the Tickle v Giggle appeal (which is now Giggle v Tickle).
Lesbian identity is fundamentally about same-sex attraction between females. As AAWAA documents, the violence and discrimination that lesbians already experience on the basis of their sexual orientation is being compounded by males seeking to identify as lesbians as part of their gender identity.
Yet Equality Australia consistently prioritises the claims of trans-identified males over the material reality of lesbian women’s need for female-only spaces. Anna Brown’s dismissal of LAG’s application as “intentionally cruel and divisive” reveals the extent to which lesbian women’s basic rights of association have been reframed as acts of discrimination.
Women going underground
But the Lesbian Action Group’s claims about going underground aren’t isolated. AAWAA has elsewhere documented how providers of female-only services for victims of sexual abuse and family violence have quietly adjusted their models to accommodate males who identify as women, taking these steps in an environment where public funding is dependent on that accommodation.
This quiet transformation of women’s services represents a significant shift in how women’s sex-based protections operate in practice. We have also shown previously that women’s groups have been unable to hold public events due to the changed legal framework. The Victorian Pride Centre’s refusal to host LAG’s International Lesbian Day celebration exemplifies this dynamic, with the centre stating that the event’s exclusionary nature was “inconsistent with the centre’s fundamental purpose”.
The principle of legality absent
But there is something else in this mix, and that is the principle of legality. This requires that courts must not interpret legislation as intending to abrogate or curtail fundamental rights or freedoms unless Parliament expresses this intention in clear and explicit terms, typically by using ‘unmistakable and unambiguous’ language. Put simply: if Parliament wishes to remove or interfere with established rights, it must do so in clear terms; otherwise, courts should interpret legislation to preserve those rights.
We applied the principle of legality directly in our analysis of Parliament’s intent in Tickle v Giggle. Our position was that, absent clear and unambiguous language from Parliament, rights such as women’s freedom of association and our sex-based political organisation should be interpreted as remaining protected. In other words, without such unmistakable intent, the law should be read to preserve the possibility of female-only spaces, such as the one at issue in Tickle v Giggle.
As AAWAA argued in our 2023 submissions to the AHRC, the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act that introduced new grounds for discrimination did not lessen the pre-existing rights of Australian women enjoyed, including to freedom of expression and association. As we have since set out in more detail, the purpose of removing the definitions of woman and man from the Act was about making the law flexible and inclusive: it was not to change the fundamental understanding of those terms in everyday use.
Crucially, when the Explanatory Memorandum stated that ‘woman’ and ‘man’ would take their ‘ordinary meaning’ after the definitions were repealed, this should be understood consistently with other Commonwealth legislation that continues to define these terms based on biological sex—particularly the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 and the Equal Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act 1987, which both define ‘woman’ as ‘a member of the female sex’. Others — including in the mainstream media — have begun to recognise this truth.
AAWAA’s analysis of the principle of legality in the Tickle v Giggle case shows that both Justice Bromwich and the AHRC failed to apply these fundamental principles of statutory interpretation. As we noted, the relevant Parliamentary debates did not discuss redefining ‘sex’ or ‘woman’ or the rights of women, and the now-famous Explanatory Memorandum to the Act specifically excluded ‘special measures’ (that is, measures that previously allowed for female services and spaces) from the 2013 changes.
Yet Justice Bromwich found Parliament’s intention was “overt and deliberate” to redefine sex as changeable. We disagree.
International comparisons: legal diversity
The contrast with recent UK developments is stark. The UK Supreme Court’s ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers affirmed that “woman” in equality legislation refers to biological sex, not legally altered sex determined by gender identity.
To be clear, this is not a contradiction of Australian law, as it arises from a different legal system, but it does highlight the diversity of possible legal responses to balancing sexual orientation and identity—something Australian law has not yet adequately resolved. Nevertheless, AAWAA points to this international divergence as evidence that Australia’s approach creates irreconcilable conflicts in discrimination law. The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls has affirmed that rights on the basis of sex must not be subordinated to other non-discrimination grounds, supporting the position that sex-based protections require clear boundaries.
The consultation question
In addition to this, we raise the ever-critical issue of the lack of meaningful consultation with women’s organisations whenever gender identity protections are introduced. AAWAA has frequently noted that state and territory governments introduced sex self-ID laws after ‘targeted consultations’ with LGBTQ communities, but often excluded women’s groups and child safeguarding experts, or only included them at the last minute after pressure.
Moreover, we note that CEDAW (the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) article 7 obliges governments to ensure women can participate equally in the formulation and implementation of public policy. Yet Australian authorities have repeatedly excluded women from the most basic questions about what it means to be a woman.
This procedural critique suggests that regardless of one’s substantive position, the process of law reform has systematically excluded the voices of women who would be most affected by these changes.
The hierarchy of rights
What emerges from AAWAA’s careful documentation of these matters is a clear hierarchy in how rights are being applied by institutions such as the AHRC. As Nicole Phillips from the Lesbian Action Group observed, “There seems to be a very obvious hierarchy of groups who are being protected under the Sex Discrimination Act by the AHRC – and it does not favour women and lesbians”.
AAWAA has previously noted along with our feminist coalition partners, the troubling tendency for the Australian Human Rights Commission to treat sex-based claims necessary for female privacy and safety as inferior to gender identity claims—a position that effectively reinterprets Australia’s obligations under CEDAW in a manner that is neither grounded in the Convention nor supported by international human rights law.
Looking forward: democracy over activism
As we await, then, the Full Court’s decision in Giggle v Tickle from November 2025, the interventions of Equality Australia and the Lesbian Action Group serve as a reminder that women’s advocacy itself has become contested terrain; and AAWAA’s documentation reveals how organisations claiming to represent marginalised groups can be captured by ideologies that fundamentally contradict the interests of the people they claim to serve.
The question facing Australia now is whether democratic institutions will recognise the material reality of biological sex and same-sex attraction, or whether they will continue to prioritise ideological commitments over the lived experiences of women. We will continue to call for meaningful and robust consultations with stakeholders and clear parliamentary guidance: resolution of these issues requires sustained democratic engagement rather than purely judicial determination.
The outcome of the Full Court’s decision will determine not just the rights of biological women and men with a female gender identity, but whether organisations like Equality Australia can continue to claim representative status whilst actively working against the interests of the groups they purport to serve. For lesbian women seeking basic rights of association, the stakes could not be higher.
The battle lines are now clearly drawn: on one side, organisations like Equality Australia that claim to represent lesbians whilst prioritising trans-identified males; on the other, actual lesbian women fighting for the right to exist as a distinct category based on biological sex and same-sex attraction. The Full Court’s decision will determine which vision of lesbian identity and women’s rights will prevail in Australian law. Yet the responsibility to clarify how competing rights are to be balanced ultimately lies with Parliament – not the courts.
