Sall Grover

Sall Grover
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	Bond University
Occupation(s)	Journalist, writer, app developer
Known for	Creating Giggle, a social media app for cisgender women

Sall Grover is an Australian businesswoman, self-identified trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and the founder of Giggle, a female-only social media app. Prior to this endeavour, Grover worked in the film industry in Australia and in the United States as a production assistant and as a screenwriter.

Giggle was subject to a high-profile legal challenge known as Tickle vs Giggle when a transgender woman had her access to the app revoked. In August 2024, the Federal Court of Australia found that Grover had contravened the Sex Discrimination Act by carrying out indirect discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and ordered her to pay A$10,000 plus the legal costs of the plantiff.

Early life and career

Grover grew up on the Gold Coast, Queensland. She studied journalism and philosophy at Bond University. She initially worked as a production assistant on a short 2005 film, The Vanished. She then moved to work as an entertainment journalist—first in Australia, then the UK—before moving to Los Angeles to begin to work in the film industry as a screenwriter. Grover collaborated with Australian screenwriter Emma Jensen who had also moved to Los Angeles. Together they wrote a script for a romantic comedy film titled Sex on the First Date, and a novel, The LA Team, for the purpose of adapting to television. After experiencing sexual harassment while working in the American film industry, Grover chose to return to Australia. Encouraged by her mother, she planned to build a social networking app for women.

Giggle app

In 2020, Grover founded Giggle for Girls, a mobile app designed as a social networking platform for cisgender women. The name, Giggle, is described as a collective noun for women, with the app presented as catering only to cisgender women, offering a safe online space for them to connect and find support in various areas such as finding roommates, freelancing, emotional support, and activism. Grover has said she was driven to develop a digital platform for cisgender women by her desire to guard against the advances of predatory men, a view that was informed by her experience with misogyny and sexual violence.

The app's membership policies restricted access to adults assigned female at birth. To verify users' birth sex, it relied on technology developed by Kairos, a company that offers facial recognition software. The software was criticised by Giggle users for failing to identify women of colour as female.

The app was particularly criticised for excluding transgender women. In response to criticism, Grover said that the exclusion of trans women was intentional, began self-identifying as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and referred to trans women as "males".

By 2021, the app reportedly had 20,000 users from 88 countries.

Grover decided to shut down the app in July of 2022. She has alleged that transgender activists have sent numerous rape threats and death threats in relation to the app's membership policy.

Legal case

Grover's efforts to create Giggle for Girls led to legal proceedings to determine the legality of the trans-exclusionary membership policies used on the platform. The plaintiff, Roxanne Tickle, also alleged that Grover had harassed her online after she complained about Giggle's policies. The case has become known as Tickle v Giggle.

• January 2022: matter brought to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) by Roxanne Tickle, a transgender woman from Lismore, New South Wales who was denied membership of the site. AHRC initially offered conciliation between the parties, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
• May 2022: matter filed in the Federal Circuit Court following the complaint.
• July 2022: case was, without explanation, dropped, as Tickle sought to discontinue all of the orders.
• June 2023: application made by Katherine Deves to dismiss the case was rejected.
• December 2023: case reopened by Tickle. Tickle was granted $50,000 from Grata Fund, a not-for-profit legal fund associated with University of New South Wales, to cover costs associated with the case.
• April 2024: hearing began before Justice Robert Bromwich with Giggle and Grover represented by Bridie Nolan. The court was required to examine the application of the Australian government's 2013 amendments to the 1984 Sex Discrimination Act. The amendments, which relate to gender identity, have not been tested in court prior to this case. The court's decision was expected to determine if the social networking app may be considered as a special measure to advance women's equality under the Sex Discrimination Act, where the exclusion of men is permitted under law. The hearing concluded after several days of arguments.
• August 2024: On 23 August 2024, Bromwich handed down his verdict, finding that Tickle had been indirectly discriminated against under the Sex Discrimination Act. The court ordered Grover to pay A$10,000 to Tickle in damages, plus legal costs.
  • In discussing his reasoning, Bromwich refuted Grover's arguments that sex was unchangeable, finding "These arguments failed because the view propounded by the respondents conflicted with a long history of cases decided by courts going back over 30 years. Those... cases established that on its ordinary meaning sex is changeable".
  • Regarding the treatment of Giggle as a "special measure", Bromwich found that "even if the Giggle App could have been considered a special measure to achieve equality between men and women, that would not have allowed the respondents to discriminate on the basis of gender identity, which is distinct from discrimination against women on the basis of sex under the SDA. The respondents’ argument therefore conflicted both with longstanding law as to how sex should be understood in the SDA, and the gender identity provisions of the SDA".
  • Bromwich found that Grover had behaved in an "offensive and belittling way" towards Tickle whilst in court by laughing at a caricature of Tickle.
  • Bromwich also refuted both the constitutional challenges raised by Grover. Grover contended that section 22 of the Sex Discrimination Act was outside of the scope of Commonwealth authority, and so discrimination based on gender identity was not actionable under the constitution. Bromwich found that "section 22 is supported by the Commonwealth’s external affairs power, as an enactment of Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)", specifically as it states "the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status". Bromwich considered "other status" to encompass gender identity.
  • The second constitutional challenge made by Grover was that there was "inconsistency between the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act 1994 (Qld) and the SDA". Bromwich found that there was no inconsistency, and that the "two statutes can and do operate harmoniously".
  • Bromwich also stated in his judgement that Grover and her legal team had presented their case in a "disjointed and somewhat incoherent way".

Responses

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) participated in the legal case by sending representatives to the court, including Anna Cody, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner. The Commission's role in the case was extended as a ‘friend of the court’ (amicus curiae) to clarify the provisions in Australia's Sex Discrimination Act. While the Commission sought earlier conciliation between the parties, it declined to offer submissions to the case.

Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, was asked to provide input in the form of a position paper to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Alsalem's paper discussed the definition of "woman" in international human rights treaties, particularly the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Alsalem argues that while CEDAW does not explicitly define "woman", it refers to individuals assigned female at birth and that sex and sex-based discrimination in that context is understood as a biological category.

Personal life

In July 2022, Grover gave birth to a daughter. Following the birth of her daughter, Grover shared her experience of completing Australia's Medicare forms, where, instead of asking for a "mother's name" it used the gender neutral term "birthing parent". After sharing her experience, the Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten, reversed the department's naming policy to its previous position, as he wished to defuse public conflict. Grover continues to live on the Gold Coast.