Female-Only App Creator SUED - Sall Grover
Episode Stats
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Summary
Sally Grover is the founder of Women s Only App, a women-only support network, which has proven extraordinarily controversial. In this episode, she talks about her journey to becoming a woman in the entertainment industry, why she founded the app, and why she's fighting for the right to say, "A man is not a woman."
Transcript
00:00:00.700
Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.
00:00:06.520
The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,
00:00:11.780
including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.
00:00:15.780
Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.
00:00:22.660
April 28th through June 7th, 2026, the Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:00:30.000
Why don't we create an app for women, basically so that women could have this women-only support network?
00:00:37.460
And cut to three and a half years later, I'm being taken to Australian Federal Court by a man who claims to be a woman.
00:00:43.860
The moment that you say that I have to think you're a woman and come into a woman's space, you've made it my business and I'm not going to accept it.
00:00:55.040
There's a huge chance that this case will go to the high court, so I have to raise a million dollars to fight for the right to say,
00:01:07.040
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Our guest today is an Australian founder of Women's Only App, which has proven extraordinarily controversial.
00:02:40.580
Before we get into it, Sal, tell everybody a little bit about who are you,
00:02:44.880
what has been the journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?
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Okay, so basically I, you know, spent a lot of time at university.
00:02:51.920
I did a bachelor and almost two master's degrees.
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I left just shy of finishing a master's degree in philosophy.
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And then I went to Hollywood of all places where, you know, academia is just so respected,
00:03:03.940
And I got into the industry relatively easily and quickly in hindsight.
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Once I was in the industry working in it, it became a nightmare that I was just so unprepared for.
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It was everything that the Me Too movement became about.
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I was in therapy just trying to recover from everything that had happened.
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My therapist said, you should have a strong female support network in your life.
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And my mom and I were speaking a lot about what I'd been through and what I was learning in therapy.
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And it was my mom who said, why don't we create an app for women?
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So that, you know, basically so that women could have like this women-only support network in the
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And initially it was going to just be a roommate app, but we developed the idea.
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We were like, oh, it can be for like roommates and freelance work and emotional support,
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just having a voice and lesbian dating and finding friends,
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just anything that a woman might need to do, like on a little corner of the internet.
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Before we launched it, trans activists discovered us and infiltrated the App Store and Google Play
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with one-star reviews, called us transphobic, got blacklisted from everything.
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And cut to three and a half years later, I'm being taken to Australian Federal Court by a man
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And the Australian Human Rights Commission has intervened in the case on his side.
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And I have to raise the Federal Court $500,000, but there's a huge chance that this case will go to
00:04:45.880
So I have to raise a million dollars to fight for the right to say a man is not a woman.
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So let's just go back to the moment where you decide to develop this app.
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It got targeted, you mentioned, before being released even.
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So we were on the App Store and Google Play just doing some beta testing,
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you know, just before we would pet plan to, you know, launch it wide.
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And there was a handful of women around the world, mainly like friends or friends of friends,
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And we were just ironing out any little bugs, testing all the features and our security and
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And basically to get on the app, so it would be female only.
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We had an onboarding process, which was that you would take a selfie and that selfie would
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go through AI and it would be that AI would help us determine if the user was male or female,
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Because you actually can tell if someone is male or female just by looking at them.
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I remember when we first got the idea and we were thinking like, how would this even
00:06:01.560
be possible to make an online space just for women?
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And when we found out that there was this technology that we could use, my thought was,
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oh, well, that's the least controversial way to do it because everyone takes selfies all
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And you can, yeah, you can just tell, like we walk down the street every day, not even
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That's a man, that's a woman, blah, blah, blah.
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Like it's just, it's so beyond like just subconscious second nature or whatever.
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I didn't know that we had so blindly yet perfectly walked into this sex versus gender war where
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people were saying that any man could say he was a woman and be accepted as that.
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I mean, we couldn't have, you couldn't have planned it better.
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And so I'm not sure exactly how the trans activists found us, but they did in that testing
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And because we didn't have all of like the onboarding features set to how they were going
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to be for launch or anything, just we were inundated with thousands upon thousands of
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men who created profiles saying kill TERFs and rape TERFs and whatnot.
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And so that's how I was introduced to the term TERF.
00:07:05.780
And they left reviews on the app store and Google play, like thousands of them saying,
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So just straight away, I was like, I have to find out what's going on.
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And I found on Twitter, um, that there were women like Helen Joyce, Julie Bindle, Kathleen
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Stock, um, Jane Claire Jones, Glenna, all these people.
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And then a lot of other women as well, speaking out going, you know, sort of the house is on
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fire and I just, and, uh, Kelly J is the other one, sorry, that I also discovered.
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And I just, I just started researching everything I could about it.
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And then when JK Rowling did her around, when she did her essay, that's what sort of gave
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me the courage to be like, okay, I need to start speaking out about this because I have
00:08:00.680
a startup that's floundering and I, I don't believe I've done anything wrong.
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Was it a particular individual who let other people know on social media?
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I have absolutely no idea where that very first one began.
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I couldn't tell you, but I do know that like, um, as we went on, like, so there would be
00:08:33.040
So there might only be 50, but then you'd have a day when it was like thousands, like
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in fact thousands an hour, like it was just crazy.
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So you'd see who was trying to get on and that they were just men.
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Um, and sometimes there'd be this big influx and they'd be wearing gamer headsets.
00:08:51.840
And so it'd be like, oh, this must be a Twitch related thing or something.
00:08:58.320
Sometimes it would be trans activists on Twitter.
00:09:00.360
Cause I, I find the tweets like, um, that Katie Montgomery individual had done it a few
00:09:06.040
In fact, when I was in labor with my daughter, we were under attack then.
00:09:09.380
And then I eventually had to say like, I can't monitor this anymore.
00:09:14.380
Um, but yeah, so sometimes we could trace it to sort of some trans activist online, but
00:09:20.500
other times it was just like, who knows where this is coming from.
00:09:25.640
And because there was one particular individual who was the headliner, shall we put it, uh,
00:09:36.620
So Roxanne Tickle is the man who claims to be a woman who is taking me to federal court.
00:09:42.860
So his story with the app is slightly different in terms of, um, not being sort of someone
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I don't think I'm not a hundred percent sure, but anyway.
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So he actually did make it onto the app and I'll explain how that can happen.
00:09:59.360
So with the onboarding software that we had, we had it set to 94% accuracy because through
00:10:08.680
So no woman would get rejected, but maybe occasionally there would be a man that would come through.
00:10:15.280
And our reasoning was, it would be better to have to kick out some men occasionally than
00:10:22.580
to not have, to have any woman like just be rejected from the app.
00:10:27.740
So rightly or wrongly, that's what we went with.
00:10:30.780
So occasionally there was like a guy that we'd get through, we'd be alerted to it or we'd
00:10:37.580
Um, sometimes they would like, um, fall through our checking system.
00:10:45.280
Um, I don't remember it at the time specifically because it was just another guy I was kicking
00:10:52.160
off, but I saw that there was a guy on there and I was like, oh, off you go.
00:11:00.200
And then a few weeks later, I got a call and a text on my phone from him saying like, this
00:11:05.780
is like the first time he became like a relative person in my life saying, like I'm Roxy Tickle
00:11:11.660
Um, I think he might've said he was trans then.
00:11:16.860
I just didn't think that this person was ever going to take me to court.
00:11:20.060
And so I, because I had the phone number, I just put it into our system and checked and
00:11:24.860
And I called my dad and I was like, there's this guy who's trying to get on Twitter, open
00:11:32.380
And my dad said, block him, block his, like block his number and don't tell your mother
00:11:36.560
because my mom lives in like perpetual fear that I'm going to get attacked.
00:11:42.480
And then two months later, I got a, um, she, I was served with a human rights complaint
00:11:48.800
from the Australian Human Rights Commission from Roxy Tickle for alleged gender identity
00:11:57.260
So to put it into perspective of how long this has been going on for my daughter is 14
00:12:03.320
And by the time this is all resolved, there's a good chance she'll be three, maybe four.
00:12:19.900
I mean, so there will be people listening to this going, well, you know, so you're being
00:12:26.940
Why is it so important that your app is a female only space?
00:12:31.020
Can you explain to us why, why is it so important that the app is female only?
00:12:37.360
Well, if it, in terms of just rather, instead of just getting into like the importance of
00:12:42.740
female only spaces, just in terms of this particular one, if the app isn't female only, it's like
00:12:50.360
Like the point of difference with it is it's female only.
00:12:54.580
Like, I mean, if I was to let men who claim to be women on, then it's not female only.
00:13:01.160
And yeah, I've just invented a place that's exactly like any other place on the internet.
00:13:17.980
Like this person is not a woman and I'm just, I'm not going to give in to that.
00:13:25.320
And second, like female only spaces, women's rights in general, whether it's female only
00:13:29.320
spaces, women's sport and services or different opportunities that are offered to women, they
00:13:34.480
are just, they're just too important and already like hard fought for it to just give in.
00:13:43.820
I've never really been someone who is, I've never been an activist before in my life or
00:13:49.420
anything like that, but I'm just like, no, I, I care too much about this, but I really
00:13:58.600
And I just can't, I can't let society just force us all to believe this.
00:14:04.180
Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond musical, A Beautiful Noise is coming to Toronto.
00:14:09.680
The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs
00:14:14.440
you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans and Sweet Caroline.
00:14:19.200
Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.
00:14:26.080
April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:14:32.840
Does it surprise you that Australia has then essentially, they're on the side, Australia
00:14:45.220
or the law, the legal system is on the side of this person who claims to be a woman called
00:14:59.640
I mean, I was in America when the law was changed.
00:15:05.200
We had our first female prime minister and it's her government that did this, which is
00:15:11.300
So it was Julia Gillard was prime minister and her government took out the definition of woman
00:15:17.940
from the Sex Discrimination Act and put in gender identity into it, which made the act
00:15:25.240
completely muddled because now you have gender in the Sex Discrimination Act.
00:15:33.080
So it's not specifically that recognizing sex is outlawed in any way.
00:15:44.060
Now, no one has tested it in any massive way yet in Australia.
00:15:50.860
Most people have been, um, you know, just intimidated by the law and the process.
00:15:55.800
There's a lot of places that have just fallen to it and given in because, you know, it is
00:16:00.860
so daunting, but you know, I just, I couldn't because I, I mean, you guys know it's like when
00:16:09.120
I, you know, these people invested in an app for women.
00:16:15.960
And I have a responsibility to these people and just to women in general and to myself.
00:16:20.160
And so I was like, yeah, I'll take it all the way to fight it.
00:16:25.960
We're doing a constitutional challenge, um, basically to try and get gender out of the
00:16:31.680
Sex Discrimination Act because it doesn't work there.
00:16:33.640
Well, Sal, I really want to pick up on that because it's really a fascinating conversation
00:16:37.800
that, as you well know, is happening around the world, not just in Australia.
00:16:41.800
But I'm curious to, look, I know for you it's personal, so it's perhaps insensitive of me
00:16:47.540
It's a question we've discussed with various people.
00:16:50.280
I mean, Sam Harris, when we last had him on, he was saying, well, look, I think Twitter
00:16:54.360
should be able to discriminate against anybody if they don't want this person on the platform.
00:16:59.800
But then I suppose the question is, what if somebody wanted to create an app for, I don't
00:17:05.100
know, only white people or only Gentiles or whatever, you know, called Tinder or something?
00:17:16.200
So, you know, I suppose the question Francis asked you earlier, I think is important to
00:17:20.880
answer, which is why is it important to have an app that is able to exclude men?
00:17:28.420
I mean, apps that, like some niche social networks that exclude people is nothing new.
00:17:32.980
I mean, in 2010, no one was asking Grindr to justify why they were excluding women.
00:17:41.500
It's only because of the introduction of gender ideology that suddenly we have to justify all
00:17:46.000
of these things because they've turned society upside down so much.
00:17:49.520
But niche apps and websites in general exist for everyone.
00:17:57.120
I mean, in terms of like there is apps that are religious based, like there are dating
00:18:01.440
apps like J-Date and things like that that aren't just based on religion.
00:18:05.940
And they've never been asked to justify themselves in the manner that something just for women
00:18:12.000
And it's interesting, like when you're talking to a lot of women, like we just get it.
00:18:15.900
And then when you're talking to men, you have to go like, how do you try and explain why
00:18:21.060
a woman, an app just for women would be important?
00:18:26.260
I just want you to explain it for people who are, yeah.
00:18:29.300
So, I mean, the internet is different for everyone and a cesspool for everybody.
00:18:37.620
It is very much an interesting place for women.
00:18:41.860
Like part of the reason how we got the idea for it is when I'd moved from Hollywood to
00:18:46.700
New York before I'd come home, I was looking for a room to rent in New York.
00:18:50.880
And in that process, like I was just using like roommates.com and all of those things.
00:18:55.640
And, you know, there'd be these guys going, oh, do you want, you could rent a room here
00:18:59.320
for free if you walk around naked, or do you want a boyfriend as well?
00:19:02.280
And it was just like, can I just do one thing without this cool stuff, like just something.
00:19:08.240
And so it was just sort of going like, okay, there is just, is there just a way to just
00:19:14.540
have a little refuge where we could just avoid that if we wanted to.
00:19:19.500
Like, obviously there's lots of women who are like, oh, no, don't care.
00:19:26.700
But then there are women who are just like, no, I'd like to just spend some time with
00:19:31.320
women, basically, and talk and just connect and talk to women all around the world.
00:19:39.340
So, yeah, I mean, I understand the need to justify it.
00:19:44.520
And obviously, like, I mean, I'm going to have to in court, but it is a weird situation
00:19:50.740
where you're like, you know, there is an app out there right now.
00:19:55.260
It encourages like 18 year old girls to get on there and take naked photos of themselves
00:19:59.760
for like a depressingly small amount of money for most of them.
00:20:02.660
And again, no one is asking anyone to justify this.
00:20:05.220
But the moment it's like something women, it's like, why?
00:20:08.580
And I think the answer is because we do, because we want it.
00:20:13.620
You should have to go much further than that in sort of a, just in a social situation.
00:20:23.600
But what does it say as to the wider society, to the way that we perceive women, to the way
00:20:31.300
that women are, let's say, I mean, judged in one way or another?
00:20:37.720
However, the fact that you want to set up an app, which is only for women and for the
00:20:42.980
vast majority of people, they go, well, yeah, okay, I get it.
00:20:47.040
But to a small percentage of people, that is deemed to be offensive.
00:20:52.780
Well, yeah, I mean, because most men, like most men are lovely.
00:20:56.280
We wouldn't be functioning as a society if most men weren't lovely.
00:21:04.420
The moment a guy is trying to get onto it, you're like, oh, the chances of you being
00:21:10.940
But at the same time, like, it's like, say, to use the example that I'm going through,
00:21:17.620
like Roxanne Tickle can't go on the app for the exact same reason that my dad can't use
00:21:22.440
Like the man that I trust more than any man in the world.
00:21:24.720
So I'm not making necessarily a personal judgment on like the applicant in the case.
00:21:39.940
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00:23:11.380
Sal, do you think a lot of this is happening because we've sort of tried to pretend for
00:23:18.320
a while that there is no difference between men and women and people have sort of imbibed
00:23:22.440
this idea, but actually there is quite a big difference.
00:23:25.720
And I understand, by the way, the intention of the people who wanted to raise those differences.
00:23:30.660
They wanted to protect, you know, they wanted to empower women.
00:23:34.580
They wanted women to get into places where power was held, et cetera, et cetera.
00:23:38.580
But we somehow ended up in a place where maybe that idea got taken to its logical conclusion
00:23:45.880
I wrestle with this a lot because, like, I think, you know, obviously, like, say feminism would
00:23:51.600
be the ideology or, like, the belief system or whatever that would be talking about here
00:24:00.440
And, you know, there's nothing that's above criticism.
00:24:02.680
So I think that it's always important to just go like, oh, hang on, did they do something
00:24:08.100
Yeah, I mean, I go like, even if there were just some feminists or women who called themselves
00:24:16.060
or self-identified as feminists that they're actually not, they sort of, like, lost their
00:24:20.740
way a little bit and sort of overthought something that didn't even need to be thought about.
00:24:26.440
You just go like, yeah, but still there was no feminist theory or want in society that
00:24:37.460
was ever, like, implemented without, like, a massive fight, like, huge, huge fights.
00:24:42.960
I mean, women, to get the right to vote was decades and very traumatic.
00:24:48.440
Whereas this, in terms of how it was just implemented into society and institutional capture and then
00:24:54.720
into laws in stealth for most of the time, I just don't think that society went, this one
00:25:02.520
feminist idea, we're going to really grab and just implement with no argument and go with it
00:25:10.820
It just, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me.
00:25:15.540
So while, like, there might have been some academics who are sort of talking nonsense,
00:25:20.380
I don't know if that's really what caused this.
00:25:25.000
I do think, I'm sort of in agreement with, like, Helen Joyce on this, that it was, like,
00:25:30.540
the autogynophiles, this sort of the sexual fetishists, especially the really powerful ones
00:25:35.980
with, like, she calls it, like, the nuclear reactor in it and just that drive and their
00:25:41.500
money and power was potentially the thing to get us to where we are now more than anything
00:25:49.100
else, in terms of where we are in legal capture, I think.
00:25:52.920
Because they want more than anything else to be able to go into female-only spaces.
00:26:02.120
What is their argument as to why they should be allowed to access your app?
00:26:08.700
Is it that you're not affirming their identity?
00:26:14.240
Well, if they claim to be women, they are women, according to the current definition,
00:26:23.360
Well, what's really interesting about that is you would think, then, if they actually
00:26:30.860
thought of this individual as a woman, or any man who claims to be a woman as a woman,
00:26:37.380
But they're like, no, this is gender identity discrimination.
00:26:40.000
It's like, well, the fact that you're not even calling it sex discrimination actually
00:26:43.560
does prove to a point that you don't think this person is a woman either.
00:26:46.980
You're just going in with an ideology that's been created.
00:26:51.220
So the Australian Human Rights Commission has intervened in the case as amicus curia, which
00:26:59.720
And they're definitely not my friend in the court.
00:27:02.900
They have intervened and said, yes, this man is a woman.
00:27:06.720
Um, the submission that they came out a few weeks ago, I can't even articulate it.
00:27:14.520
It is the most batshit insane 26 pages I've ever read in my entire life.
00:27:19.540
It's like you're reading it going like, this is like a draft for 1984 that Orwell went, no,
00:27:31.400
They literally say that, um, biologists, this is a sex discrimination commissioner saying
00:27:36.220
is that sex is not binary, but it can also be changed.
00:27:40.560
They, at one point they were saying that, um, a trans woman's desire to be pregnant would
00:27:55.120
And so you just, like, they don't really have any arguments beyond we say he's a woman.
00:28:03.020
So therefore he's a woman and, and sex can be changed.
00:28:09.240
Like that's one of the craziest things in the whole process.
00:28:12.360
And I think some other people who have had to go through legal processes with this, with
00:28:16.920
gender ideology specifically would feel the same.
00:28:20.020
You're in this position where you've got to find all of this evidence and, and, you know,
00:28:24.020
argue your case and make sure you can back it up with facts.
00:28:26.860
But at no point is anyone going, should we get evidence that he's a woman?
00:28:36.040
Like if you're just being able to assert he's a woman, like that's just not how the legal
00:28:39.480
process works in any other area from my understanding was always been evidence based.
00:28:44.600
And, you know, you just, you go like, you know, one of the things in, um, in the human rights
00:28:52.060
commission, submission and description of the law, they're saying, you know, it's a gender
00:28:58.940
And you're like, well, you know, if we're talking about lived experience or anything here,
00:29:03.500
this gendered behavior is exactly how I would expect a man to behave.
00:29:08.320
Like, where does my lived experience come into it?
00:29:24.680
But I want to ask you, do you think that the, this is all about the invention of this idea
00:29:31.820
of gender identity and, and everything else cascades down from that?
00:29:37.020
We've had this conversation with many people on the show, as you know, I am very, I remain
00:29:41.940
highly unconvinced that the creation of the concept of gender was a useful, a good thing.
00:29:47.760
Um, and it seems to me like once you say, well, there are sex and then there is gender
00:29:57.020
This inevitably follows because the concept of gender is sort of how you behave makes what
00:30:02.800
you are and then, well, then people can pretend to be whatever they want because they can
00:30:08.980
wear a dress and then suddenly they are a woman.
00:30:12.960
I mean, there is an argument to be made that the gender does not need to be in the law at
00:30:18.900
And it would actually be better for society if it wasn't because first of all, you know,
00:30:24.120
making, um, an identity, especially sort of, you know, just this, um, self-declared identity,
00:30:32.620
the responsibility of the law is incredibly difficult and messy, but even just like the
00:30:39.880
protection of sex, which everybody has, and it's, you know, easy to acknowledge and establish
00:30:45.400
and everything actually does all of the work in the law.
00:30:48.640
So like, if you are a man who wants to wear women's clothes or whatever, which like, I am
00:30:53.960
very like live and let live, even if I don't like the reason why he wants to wear women's
00:30:58.660
clothes, like whether it is autogynephilia or something, still I'm like in a free society,
00:31:06.540
The law doesn't have to be involved in any specific way because if saying in an employment
00:31:14.060
situation, you would think that if he wanted to wear women's clothes and he was told he was not
00:31:19.380
allowed, it would be on the basis of his sex that he wasn't allowed because they'd be going,
00:31:26.820
But if so, that would be, that would be a sex discrimination.
00:31:34.740
The state should stay out of people's brains like this.
00:31:38.580
It should just be there to make sure society is functioning.
00:31:41.600
But gender has made it that nothing is functioning.
00:31:46.440
Everything's getting distracted because of this, like the stupidest issue of all time.
00:31:51.600
And it's look, and let's be brutally honest about this.
00:31:55.640
Australia don't have a good record for the last couple of years for staying out of people's
00:32:04.740
You went to use a technical term, absolutely batshit as a result of that.
00:32:12.740
It's one of those situations where when like, when you're living here and you don't, you
00:32:20.840
You sort of wake up one day and you go, oh, it's, God, it's been happening for years.
00:32:26.400
It's unusual because Australians are pretty easygoing people.
00:32:31.000
We're also pretty straightforward and like some no bullshit kind of people.
00:32:34.140
So there, it's definitely, definitely like there is that.
00:32:38.740
I mean, it's like in the UK, it's like in the US and Canada, it was so divided right
00:32:43.760
now of basically the people have bought into all of this crap and seem to apparently love
00:32:50.940
And then you've got to look at the other people who are like, no, I'd prefer to think
00:32:59.940
Like that it was even all happening with the gender stuff as I was focusing on, I was still
00:33:06.960
Also in my online like algorithms, I was very much in like an, I hate Trump Twitter bubble.
00:33:17.220
And then COVID happened and I was starting to go, oh, oh, that's a bit weird.
00:33:21.060
And then, yeah, we all woke up to find out that, oh, hey, you don't have that many rights
00:33:31.740
And it's not like the UK was particularly good on that stuff either.
00:33:35.120
And tell us more about how the legal case has gone and what your expectations are for
00:33:41.940
So we basically, he, so he, he'd done last year, he'd done the Australian human rights
00:33:55.520
And that's where they, they try and resolve it outside of the courts, basically like a
00:34:08.860
And he wants a written apology and, um, all men who claim to be woman on the app, um,
00:34:15.880
in, in court, he's going for money as well for damages, but in initial human rights,
00:34:19.860
like he wasn't, I think the conditions for me to go to conciliation were that I'd have
00:34:24.500
to, him on the app, all men think to be woman on the app, um, an apology, attend sex
00:34:31.120
and gender education, which could only be re-education because I am very educated on
00:34:37.960
Um, so, so they want, sorry, again, sorry to interrupt, but I think this is important
00:34:42.140
not to skip over part of the things that you will do.
00:34:46.340
If you lose this case, you have to go on a re-education course.
00:34:54.880
And then the other thing was, um, they wanted me to mod, uh, moderate all content on the app
00:35:01.300
so that like men like him would not be offended because basically there are a lot of women just
00:35:06.780
turfing out on there and talking about their rights and because of course they can, they
00:35:11.140
can go and talk about them without trans activists, men, male trans activists getting
00:35:15.260
Now, a female trans activist would be welcome to come onto the app.
00:35:19.000
Um, so long as she was civil and didn't harass and just abided by the rules.
00:35:21.960
Like you don't, there's no like thought control or anything.
00:35:24.540
No one has to agree with everything, but I mean, they basically stayed away from it.
00:35:31.120
So I said no to conciliation because I knew that I was never going to agree to those terms.
00:35:35.900
And then also by this point, I was like third trimester pregnancy and I didn't, with the
00:35:40.360
stress of it, I was, I'm not putting myself through it, not going to happen.
00:35:44.160
And so we said no to it and knowing that the risk could be that he'd take it to federal
00:35:52.360
He filed on the 61st day, uh, the 60th day, but just how the days felt was felt it was the
00:35:59.340
Then he withdrew about a month later, which we were like, Oh, basically that's a win.
00:36:05.620
And then he refiled again about five and a half months later, like Christmas time last
00:36:10.020
So when he refiled again, he was what's fastest out of time, like beyond like the time from
00:36:16.680
So he had to get granted permission to, for the case to be heard.
00:36:21.760
And by this point I was like, we could have really pushed back on that, but I was like,
00:36:35.120
And if this is the case, it's going to help resolve it.
00:36:38.500
Like, you know, you, you don't want to do it, but you're sort of in the position where
00:36:42.420
you're like, okay, I'm just going to rise to the occasion because maybe hopefully we
00:36:45.540
can just end this and we can all live on with our lives and have some normality back.
00:36:51.460
So in the case, yeah, he's asking for, um, yeah, money for damages and like, because
00:37:00.500
So, well, I'm not sure because Australian damages work very specifically.
00:37:05.460
So like, I don't think that it's not, I don't think it's like millions and millions of dollars.
00:37:11.960
Like, but, um, but it's, it's still just money.
00:37:17.000
Like it is a thing where you just go like, it's just an app.
00:37:19.520
Uh, it's just an app and like, I, I don't, but, but it's not though.
00:37:28.680
That's why you, that's why you're fighting it because of the principle.
00:37:34.640
So basically, um, the other, and actually this, just to go back to your point earlier
00:37:39.360
about, um, about people being able to choose who it is, who, who are on their platform and
00:37:45.780
who are not, and where sort of is the line with that.
00:37:47.980
Um, so for us, we built our own crowdfunding platform because we had the resources to do
00:37:53.840
And we knew that we would get kicked off, like GoFundMe or anything like that, because they
00:38:01.080
So like, just, we'll just, I don't want the stress of it.
00:38:06.480
We have been, so then building our own, we had to put in payment systems, like so that,
00:38:10.980
you know, you can just put your card details in or Apple and Google pay, whatever.
00:38:15.020
So we've been kicked off to payment platforms on the basis of complaints, been kicked off
00:38:23.140
So the crowdfunder is actually down at the moment because we're trying to find a third.
00:38:30.380
Um, thankfully, but at both of the times that it's happened, it's obviously a huge inconvenience
00:38:37.120
and it's really frustrating, but I've always sat there and gone, well, if you don't want
00:38:47.780
I'm not going to go and take you to court over it.
00:38:49.840
What I would like is the right to do the same thing is to choose who is and who is not on
00:38:56.220
So even during this process, I've experienced people having the rights that I would like
00:39:02.000
Um, and yeah, not things, hopefully we'll get there.
00:39:08.100
And I think we will, like, I'm very, very optimistic about it because I just think, I just think
00:39:14.720
Sometimes you have to fight for it, but I think you get there in the end.
00:39:21.920
My question is, and look, maybe you don't know the answer to this.
00:39:26.780
Um, so from my understanding, his legal team is pro bono because, you know, I mean, you're
00:39:36.900
a big firm and it's like, oh, this is a big, you know, civil rights, human rights case, you
00:39:41.820
know, poor transgender woman not being allowed to go on an app.
00:39:50.400
And then he also got a $50,000 branch from, um, it's called the Brada Fund.
00:39:55.680
Which, um, is, um, like a, they, they give like funding to like legislation challenges
00:40:06.980
So, yeah, I mean, but in a case like this, where, um, you know, a federal court case,
00:40:13.220
So it's not like an obscene amount of money that he's been given, but yeah, I mean, the
00:40:17.880
financial threat to him is significantly different than what it is to me.
00:40:24.160
Like, obviously there is no government funds that I can go to, to ask for money because
00:40:29.940
I'm battling the government and they're against me.
00:40:32.560
So while the case is always like tickle be giggle, it is fundamentally because of the Australian
00:40:37.480
Human Rights Commission, it's giggle versus the government.
00:40:43.540
Do they have to, do they have to rethink the law?
00:40:49.100
So there's a few different ways that it can go.
00:40:51.460
So we're expecting that it's going to go to the high court, no matter what, because if
00:40:56.820
we were to lose in federal court, obviously we're going to appeal it to the high court.
00:41:00.720
And if they lose, especially the Australian Human Rights Commission lose in federal court,
00:41:04.780
there's a huge chance that they would take it to the high court.
00:41:07.600
So you're sort of in this now going like it's high chance it's going to go to the high court.
00:41:12.960
So the high court is really where the constitutional arguments will come into play from my
00:41:18.860
So if we were to win on a constitutional basis, um, and it was to be found that gender being
00:41:25.600
in the Sex Discrimination Act is unconstitutional.
00:41:28.520
I mean, part of the reason for that is with CEDAW, which like the UN and CEDAW and the, you
00:41:33.280
know, um, the protection of women's rights and all of that, I'm going to have a complete
00:41:42.120
Um, you know, we're a signatory in that and they, you know, this is not an organization
00:41:48.700
that claims that, that trans women are women and our Sex Discrimination Act is based on
00:41:55.160
So that's what part of where our constitutional argument comes in.
00:41:59.020
If we win that constitutional argument in the high court, it would mean that gender is
00:42:05.020
So it would mean that sex is once again, the defining factor of the Sex Discrimination
00:42:11.240
Act, which is what a stupid sentence to have to say, but it would mean that female-only
00:42:16.400
spaces were female again, female-only sports and male-only spaces as well, because I think
00:42:20.320
that men deserve privacy and dignity in male spaces as well.
00:42:25.100
Um, it would mean that self-ID was off the table.
00:42:29.440
And so would, I mean, they're not obviously going to go just slink away and be like, oh,
00:42:35.160
They would obviously try and come back and weave it through the law in a different way,
00:42:38.780
but they'd be doing it where sex had been established as the important thing.
00:42:42.100
And also people knowing what's going on and watching.
00:42:48.000
It sounds like a really important case to me, actually, Sal, because I think one of the
00:42:53.300
things that has been happening is there's a tremendous amount of, uh, cowardice actually
00:43:00.760
Uh, and I think everybody's just looking for somebody to take the first step.
00:43:05.580
And so if Australia was to come to a position as a result of you winning, where you were forced
00:43:11.660
to rethink the sort of structural legal underpinning of all of this, I think a lot of other
00:43:17.060
Anglosphere countries might, might then be emboldened to follow suit.
00:43:22.600
I mean, it's, it's like how, like, you know, in the UK where you guys are in such a better
00:43:27.460
position than we are on this particular issue, you know, part of the reason is because women
00:43:34.740
Um, and we just, we didn't have a chance to take it to the courts before a lot of the
00:43:41.940
stuff was done because we didn't know about it.
00:43:47.120
So it is just bigger and a little bit harder, but it's still completely entirely possible.
00:43:56.820
So yeah, it's just, it, it will be hopefully the thing that makes other countries, like especially
00:44:03.320
Canada, for example, if you think of other Commonwealth countries to make them go, oh, hang on.
00:44:11.960
I mean, just last week, a, um, news organization in Australia called news.com.au, which is very
00:44:19.120
Um, they call me a, um, a conservative media figure all the time because welcome to the
00:44:29.200
They only ever refer to me as like a media figure or a conservative media figure.
00:44:36.260
Like they won't give any publicity to giggle or any, like they won't tell people what I
00:44:41.340
Um, but they just did a poll and found that only 4.2% of Australians think trans women are
00:44:49.600
women and like 82.5% of Australians don't want trans women, men in women's sport.
00:44:55.520
It's like, this is like deeply unpopular in the public.
00:45:03.040
Well, Matt Goodwin, who's a regular guest of ours, as you know, he tweeted something,
00:45:07.500
uh, recently, which basically shows that support for self ID and all of this stuff is just
00:45:14.440
going through the floor as people get more educated about the issues.
00:45:18.040
And it's not surprising because surprise, surprise, it's not that complicated.
00:45:27.340
But it's like how the trans activists try and spin it and say like, there's an increasing
00:45:34.060
And it's not, it's just more people realizing that these gender policies are nonsense.
00:45:41.720
It's like, if like the transgender activism community had gone, look, we just are a demographic
00:45:48.640
of people who, you know, like to appear like the opposite sex.
00:45:53.160
I think, I think it would have been pretty easy to get people to be like, okay, about
00:45:56.880
Like most people are let live and let live, don't really care.
00:45:59.560
It doesn't bother me, you know, get on with it.
00:46:02.100
It's because they said that we have to believe this lie, you know, in fear of punishment that
00:46:10.520
Like, if it was just a situation, like we'd say with Roxy Tickle, I'm like, if you want
00:46:14.900
to get up every day and call yourself a woman and wear a woman's clothes and take hormones
00:46:21.840
The moment that you say that I have to think you're a woman and come into a woman's space,
00:46:25.560
you've made it my business and I'm not going to accept it.
00:46:34.620
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00:48:03.980
There's more and more places in Australia that are fighting back.
00:48:09.020
The Lesbian Action Groups, which is a Melbourne-based group, they're trying to get an exemption
00:48:13.900
to be able to hold a female-only lesbian event like there's any other kind.
00:48:19.160
And the Australian Human Rights Commission has just said no to them.
00:48:25.540
Wait, so lesbians can't have a female-only event?
00:48:36.520
Basically, they're all like, you know, we're just against discrimination.
00:48:40.440
Because you're discriminating against lesbians right now.
00:48:43.820
Discriminate against lesbians or discriminate against heterosexual men who like to wear dresses.
00:48:52.060
So they are fighting back and willing to take it all the way as well, which is fantastic.
00:48:58.360
But yeah, I mean, that's where it is in society.
00:49:03.320
Like one of the women in Lesbian Action Group, she phrased it so well.
00:49:07.200
She said that, you know, she can get married now, but she can't go to a lesbian event to meet a spouse.
00:49:13.820
So yeah, like, so it's like we're not going forward in society.
00:49:21.820
We're going backwards at a very, very fast pace.
00:49:25.360
And whatever happens, I mean, to be blunt, you are going to end up in the high court.
00:49:29.540
Because if Tickle, I mean, this is just bizarre, loses in the constitutional court,
00:49:36.100
he's going to take it to the high court because he's not going to accept that.
00:49:41.360
So I don't know if it would be more him specifically, if it would be the Australian Human Rights Commission.
00:49:47.100
I would sort of think that the Australian Human Rights Commission who would sort of say,
00:49:50.720
you know, we're going to fight to the end on this.
00:49:53.280
Because, I mean, the Australian Human Rights Commission, from my understanding of what I've read about it,
00:49:58.380
they were one of the ones who lobbied for these laws.
00:50:01.280
So I think they are really there sort of protecting the law that they fought for, that they wrote.
00:50:06.560
And, I mean, so I understand, like, just from that perspective, why they would be there fighting it for the law.
00:50:16.020
It's just that they've written a law that is so insane that, you know, they just didn't, it's like,
00:50:21.500
they just didn't think of, oh, like, what are the ramifications?
00:50:24.680
Because it's like any part of gender ideology, like, if you think about it for more than one second,
00:50:29.320
like, by the time you get to that second second, every part of it has fallen apart.
00:50:33.520
Because you should go, like, oh, hang on, male rapists are going to say they're women and go,
00:50:37.940
we're going to reward them by putting them in women's prisons, all female-only spaces and sport,
00:50:44.860
But then also society's freedom of belief or freedom of speech is just gone in an instant.
00:50:51.340
They were just like, oh, protect this one group.
00:50:58.000
Why did these groups be protected more than anyone else?
00:51:02.220
So listen, I want to move on to our local sections because we've got a ton of questions from our supporters.
00:51:07.820
But I just wanted to say that, you know, you and I have spoken a little bit on Twitter and stuff,
00:51:13.140
and I'm really glad we had you on because I don't think I fully appreciated the significance of the case you're fighting
00:51:18.240
and the potential impact, actually, not just in Australia, but in the world.
00:51:22.580
So I really hope that, obviously, you do win, and I hope that people support you.
00:51:27.460
Is there a way that people can support you at the moment?
00:51:31.160
So, like, hopefully by the time this comes out, it will all be up and running, hopefully, in the next few days, basically.
00:51:45.220
And there's all information about the case and the constitutional challenge is all there.
00:51:49.500
And, yeah, I mean, we have $500,000 Australian dollars to raise at this stage, which is just, like, so incredibly stressful.
00:51:58.160
But, yeah, I know that we'll get there, and the kindness of strangers from all around the world so far has been just absolutely amazing.
00:52:07.620
And the only way I can repay it back is by saying, like, we'll get your rights back.
00:52:11.700
It will be all cool, and then you can go around calling a man a man, and everything will be fantastic.
00:52:19.060
Sal, before we go over to locals, we obviously, as you know, end with the same question in this part of the interview, which is…
00:52:26.440
What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?
00:52:33.980
I think it does sort of come back to everything that I've just been saying.
00:52:37.120
I don't think we're talking enough about the fact that just, like, the very foundation of democracy, you know, the freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of association,
00:52:47.340
is just at the altar of a demographic of men's feelings right now.
00:52:51.500
And it's, if we can't talk about that, then we can't fix it.
00:52:58.760
And I'm just not willing to give up, you know, just this real thing, democracy, the most important thing for these people.
00:53:11.780
I will say this, even though I'm instantly going to fall into the feminist trap of hashtag not all men.
00:53:29.080
Like, you know, whenever I talk about this, Deb, like, I'll say, oh, a demographic of men.
00:53:33.380
I'll say this on Twitter and they'll be like, oh, not all men.
00:53:35.380
I'm like, if you don't fit into that demographic, I'm not talking about you.
00:53:41.860
I'm just saying, I think there are actually a lot of men on your side.
00:53:46.760
And I think that's, you know, one of the reasons I think progress is being made is actually it's men and women coming together and working together, which I think we want.
00:53:56.780
And I think, you know, men, men have spoken up sometimes that they've been in a position more where they're sort of, they're not getting rape threats and death threats for speaking up at the same sort of rate that a woman is.
00:54:10.260
I mean, there are men around the world who are losing their jobs and being punished.
00:54:15.260
But I think, you know, for a lot of men that they have seen that it's not even just an attack on women's rights.
00:54:24.680
And even from my perspective, if that's the only reason you're coming at this issue, I'm fine with that.
00:54:33.420
But so it's like, if you're like, I don't really care about women's rights.
00:54:40.280
We'll get there in the end together and women's rights will be saved.
00:54:44.440
Well, head on over to Locals where we continue the conversation, especially with your questions.
00:54:48.660
Do you think the trans phenomenon is a woke fad or is it here to stay?
00:55:25.320
June 7th, 2026 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.