• 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.

  • john89@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    I don’t understand.

    It’s okay to discriminate against men but not transgender women?

    • prof@infosec.pub
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      7 months ago

      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.

      • Taohumor@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I remember back in high school I had a teacher in an all male classroom because it was a stem field but for kids like an introductory course. A girl showed up in the 2nd year and he sort of joked about how it changes the dynamic cuz now all the guys will need to flex for her so the point of the class was sort of ruined. I remember that class was actually fucking amazing because you would make friends with guys regardless of your social circle or wealth background. Like I talked to multiple demographics and we all treated each other equally and we were all there to learn the trade. It was an amazing experience that I’ve never found anywhere else, especially not any circle where there were women. Hell even guys who were in that class there were a few if you met them outside the class it was just different. I made some close friends there where we kept spending time together outside the class that I otherwise would not have met but others when they got back to “the rest of the world” that hierarchy set back in and they couldn’t bring themselves to talk to you on that level anymore. Women invading male safe spaces under the guise of glass ceilings or whatever was extremely toxic for men, it’s as if men started barging into women’s bathrooms honestly saying it’s a glass ceiling to their right to stare at women in their own private moments. Stupid example but it’s all I could come up with.

        The point is I would love to find another environment like that and even I wish I looked for more like that as a kid and to have appreciated it for what it was more at the time. Men need to learn to see each other as brothers and not as opposition, that’s the only way we get out of this mess is to unionize properly. I think we had it once but we lost it because of this fucking propaganda painting men as inherently predators.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          Women invading male safe spaces under the guise of glass ceilings or whatever was extremely toxic for men, it’s as if men started barging into women’s bathrooms

          So the class wasn’t a “men only” class, it just was a class women generally weren’t interested in. And a woman deciding she is interested was the same as men barging into women’s bathrooms.

          Jfc, who are the snowflakes again?

    • ZK686@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Why not just create a “trans” app and make your own people happy too?

    • zbyte64@awful.systems
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      7 months ago

      Discriminating against men is based on gender, discriminating against trans women is based on sex (at birth).

      • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        I down voted, not because I disagree with the claim, but because it doesn’t make any sense in the context and just reads as a knee-jerk dismissive response of a valid point.

        • Plague_Doctor@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It’s true though. Gender is a performance, and as a woman your womanhood is always under scrutiny from everyone else. You can get your identity as woman taken from you if you don’t “look woman enough”. Which if you say have more masculine features, cut your hair short as a cis woman you become less woman. For example Butch lesbians are actually the most often de-womanized. Same goes for less masculine men. It’s a box no one fits into perfectly and having certain genitals doesn’t include or exclude you from either.

          This person wanted a safe space where they wouldn’t have to deal with cis straight men. Which makes it that if men want inclusion in such spaces they need to be better.

          Another question for you all, why as cis men do you want inclusion in these spaces?

          • ZK686@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            So, what about those who are born with a uterus? Where can they go? What if they decide, only those who were born with a vagina at birth, are women and we want only those to be part of our organization? I mean, are they wrong?

        • zbyte64@awful.systems
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          7 months ago

          “trans women are women” is pointing out this isn’t about men vs women but the given sex at birth.

          • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            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?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        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.

        • ZK686@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I don’t understand? Reddit politics is ultra liberal, they would eat this women’s app alive for discriminating against the trans.

        • ZK686@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Lol…what? I’ve read like 3 comments saying that the app is in the right, the overwhelmingly majority are siding with the trans…

      • ZK686@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I define a woman as a female who has a uterus, how should I define them?

          • ZK686@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            That’s silly and you know it. She still had one to begin with. That’s like saying “if a dude cuts off his penis, he’s no longer a dude!”

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              7 months ago

              I define a woman as a female who has a uterus

              Your definition. Has a uterus. You said nothing about a female who had a uterus.

              And you haven’t defined female.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  7 months ago

                  It’s not my fault that your definition excluded women who had a uterus at one time but didn’t later.

                  How about women who have two X chromosomes but were born without a uterus? Not women?

                  • ZK686@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    Oh brother…let’s just agree to disagree…it’s obvious what side of the issue you’re on…

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                7 months ago

                So you are male even if you have a complete set of female sex organs and no male sex organs?

                Literally the only way to determine ‘male’ or ‘female’ is a DNA test?

                We’ve never been able to determine that before Flemming discovered chromosomes in the late 19th century?

                That’s really weird, because the etymology of the word male traces it back to the 14th century.

                Now I’m not math expert, but I’m pretty sure 14 comes before 18.

                • Random_German_Name@feddit.de
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                  7 months ago

                  So you are male even if you have a complete set of female sex organs and no male sex organs?

                  Biologically yes. At least according to my definition, but thats a different discussion.

                  Literally the only way to determine ‘male’ or ‘female’ is a DNA test?

                  Biologically, yes.

                  We’ve never been able to determine that before Flemming discovered chromosomes in the late 19th century?

                  In the 19th century we assumed, that social and biological gender are the same and ignored, that basically every definition of „male“ or „female“ at the time had exceptions and wasn‘t applicable to everyone.

                  That’s really weird, because the etymology of the word male traces it back to the 14th century.

                  I am surprised it doesn‘t traces back even further. People believed in all kind of shit back then. Thats no argument.

                  Now I’m not math expert, but I’m pretty sure 14 comes before 18.

                  That doesn‘t make sense in the slightest. By that logic the earth is flat, because the first models of a flat earth were published before the first models of a round earth.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                    7 months ago

                    Why do you get to unilaterally determine biological definitions when science is based on consensus?

                    Also, from where did you obtain your doctorate in genetics?