Tickle v Giggle Judge Falsely Rules That ‘Sex Is Changeable’

Without an anchor in biological reality, laws based on ‘sex’ become meaningless and justice cannot be served.

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About the Author

Dr. Colin Wright is the CEO/Editor-in-Chief of Reality’s Last Stand, an evolutionary biology PhD, and Manhattan Institute Fellow. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, the New York Post, Newsweek, City Journal, Quillette, Queer Majority, and other major news outlets and peer-reviewed journals.

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Yesterday, a judge of the Federal Court of Australia delivered a judgment on Australia’s landmark case, Tickle v Giggle (TvG). Despite its lighthearted and seemingly childish name, this case is one of the most significant regarding women’s sex-based rights worldwide. At its core, TvG will determine whether a person’s subjective “gender identity”—a vague concept lacking scientific grounding—will take precedence over an individual's objective biological sex under Australian sex discrimination law.

The case centers on a complaint by Roxanne Tickle, a trans-identified male, against Giggle for Girls, a female-only social networking app created by its CEO Sall Grover. Tickle contends that being barred from joining the app constitutes discrimination based on “gender identity” under Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (SDA), which was amended in 2013 to include gender identity, sexual orientation, and intersex status. These amendments removed sex-based definitions, leading to significant confusion and debate over the status of women's sex-based rights in Australia.

TvG fundamentally hinges on the definition of the term “woman” and whether a person’s sex should be considered to have also changed when they self-declare as a member of the opposite sex. While many would find the notion that a person’s “gender identity” defines their sex to be inherently absurd, it reflects the truly absurd times we live in.

In July 2023, I was contacted by Grover’s legal team to serve as an expert witness and to produce a report addressing fundamental questions about the biology of sex. These included but were not limited to:

• What is biological sex?

• How many biological sexes are there?

• What is a biological male?

• What is a biological female?

• Is biological sex on a spectrum?

• Can humans change biological sex?

In October 2023, my 4200-word report was entered into the court record.