Andrew L. Urban
Everyone knows that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory. Sall Grover of Giggle fame has great hair. The Tickle person definitely does not. Even a former Family Court judge – a woman – is now challenging the Federal Court for its “extraordinary overreach” to find that the ordinary meaning of “woman” includes a biological male.
Tickle was born male but identifies with a female gender identity and has undergone “gender reassignment” surgery. Tickle obtained a reissued birth certificate under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act (Qld) changing Tickle’s “record of sex” to female. However, Tickle did not – could not – get a chromosome transplant.
As reported in The Australian (13/6/2026), former Family Court judge Catherine Carew KC says it was “an extraordinary overreach” for the Federal Court to find that the ordinary meaning of “woman” includes a biological male who merely identifies as a woman in the Giggle v Tickle decision now set to be challenged in the High Court. For Giggle, Sall Grover’s lawyers argue that the definition of “sexual orientation” in the act is a reflection of the fact that sexuality is oriented towards a biological sex rather than an identity or a status, quoting the landmark For Women Scotland case in the UK: “People are not sexually attracted towards those in possession of a certificate,” they say. (Indeed.)
This challenge to it coincides with criticism of the Court for “The egregious delays by some judges in delivering reserved judgments [that] represent a real and growing threat to the rule of law in Australia,” as Federal Court judge Ian Jackman (Hugh’s brother) said on Thursday night to the Rule of Law Institute in a speech that explores what the rule of law means. “Judicial delay in giving judgments constitutes a serious violation of the rule of law’s requirement for the effective and timely administration of justice by those whom the community trusts to be the rule of law’s most committed guardians,” Jackman said. But Justice Jackman’s colleagues, apparently, are not open to discussion. On Friday his speech was taken down from the court’s website with no explanation given.
The SDA was amended in 2013 by the Gillard Labor government to add the three new grounds of discrimination – sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status – and remove the definitions of man and woman.
Carew acknowledges that the 2013 amendments to the act were “appallingly drafted” but questions the claim of the appeal court judges that all they were doing was “applying the law”.
Carew argues the evidence in the case does not support the court’s finding that people such as the Tickle person, born male but with a female gender identity, generally appear to be male. And an ugly one at that. Besides, no self respecting woman with XX chromosomes would be seen in public with hair looking like Tickle’s.
That matters because “Gender” is not defined in the SDA but “gender identity” is defined to mean “the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of a person (whether by way of medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the person’s designated sex at birth”.
“In such a highly contentious case, it is regrettable that the judges (both at trial and on appeal) adopted the terms used by Tickle: misgender, cisgender and transgender. None of these terms appears in the SDA and Grover rejected the validity of such terms. The judges justified the use of these terms as being “convenient” and “purely descriptive”. If the court were merely applying the law, why did it not confine itself to the terminology in the SDA; namely, that Tickle had a gender identity different to the sex designated at birth?”
Carew has big questions: “Was the Federal Court wrong to hold that the “ordinary meaning” of woman includes a person such as Tickle? Why did the court adopt the contested terminology of one litigant rather than use the terminology in the Sex Discrimination Act (Cth)? Did the court misapply the SDA when finding that Grover had directly discriminated against a protected group, of which Tickle is a member, by assuming all such persons have “male facial features” and all persons born female have “female facial features”? As Grover had a genuine belief that only persons born female could be women, was it wrong for the court to increase the damages because Grover “misgendered” Tickle?”
Coming to a High Court near you, Sall Grover! “Great hair is the best revenge”.
for example …
Good heavens!