The brats vs women's rights

When Sall Grover came to town.

The brats

On Tuesday night 100 or so people gathered in Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) to listen to women talk about women’s rights, the rights of kids, the rights of gay people, and human rights generally.

Off and on, throughout human history, entitled control freaks—sometimes thuggish, sometimes bratty—have hated two things: women’s rights and women talking about their rights. They want to destroy and dismantle women’s rights without anyone mentioning it. They’ll do what they can to cower everyone into silence and submission. Women talking is a threat to patriarchal control. With talking comes resistance. With talking comes the fight back.

And so it was on Tuesday night. Queer Endurance in Defiance (QED), Uni-Q Victoria and Poneke Anti-Fascist Coalition (LOL-do you know what fascists do to women?) all decided that a group of women holding a meeting to a paid-up, willing audience was not okay. Like generations of thugs and bullies before them they hyped up support for their protest by lying about, slandering and insulting the women involved. From the photos some of them look very young. No doubt they have been a bit brainwashed into believing that their decidedly anti-women, oppressive behaviour (which their Grandmas will be super pissed off at) is actually in the tradition of left wing protest. Sigh. While busily attacking women’s rights they claim that women are attacking them. Gaslighting, much? Get it together kids, see it for what it is, you’re trying to shut up women. Not progressive or radical in the least, just very, very tedious.

Here are some direct quotes from QED et al slandering the women and the event on a bunch of social media platforms:

• Women’s Rights Party…are a front for various anti-trans groups in Aotearoa

• Sall Grover is…an anti-trans activist

• these self proclaimed feminists aim to remove legal protections for trans people

• they will martyr themselves and cause conflict to suit their narrative

• [they] tend to be extremely confrontational and try and get people riled up

• TERF losers

• bigots gather in our city

• why is VUW willing to subject their students to this hatred

• an inclusive venue policy would mean these TURDS could not use this space.

The organisers of Tuesday’s women’s rights meeting had to change the location from Pipitea VUW campus to a Plan B venue because the protesters weren’t just going to stand outside and protest peacefully, but planned to come inside and disrupt the event. Under these circumstances it was likely that those attending would be unable to hear much. A quickly executed switcheroo plan meant the protesters didn’t, at first, know where we were. However, when they figured it out, they excitedly scurried to the new venue and bravely and joyously stood outside yelling and drumming on things for a full 25 minutes or so.

Why did they bother to follow us? I guess because they are super inclusive and needed us to know how inclusive they are by trying to stop women speaking? Maybe? Maybe also because they were a bit disappointed that we tried to avoid their nonsense and went somewhere where we hoped it would be quiet and they would leave us alone. In doing so we sneakily bypassed their ability to prove exactly how confrontational and hostile we truly are. I mean bummer! If they can’t get close enough to us, how on earth can they be confronted by us? We annoyingly just seemed to want to do our own thing rather than (checks notes) be martyrs, remove trans peoples’ legal rights, get people riled up and cause conflict. Disappointing! Soz guys.

What was the event about?

The claims that the speakers and organisers are anti-trans and trying to take away trans rights are dishonest. Women at the event talked about, among other things, attacks on women’s rights. It wouldn’t matter much if the attacks were coming from Incels, fundy Christians, marauding gangs, wife beaters, Hollywood directors or state enforced propaganda machines, we’d still get together to talk about it. As it happens the attacks in question are coming from those who claim to be flying the trans rights flag. It doesn’t change the nature of what they’re doing and we still needed to talk about it.

Tuesday’s event was focused on the Tickle vs Giggle case going on in Australia. It’s a case that is interesting legally, politically and from a human rights perspective. It was ludicrous that discussing the case was deemed problematic by self-identified freedom fighters.

Here’s the gist of Tickle vs Giggle: having had some shitty stuff happen to her in Hollywood and the US, stuff she experienced because of her female sex, Sall Grover, back in her home country of Australia, decided to start a female-only networking app.

Roxanne Tickle, born with a penis, but who identifies as a woman, was removed from the app because Sall recognised him as a male (see below). Roxanne Tickle then took Giggle and Sall to court over it all, claiming that Sall discriminated against him.

Roxanne Tickle

Australia’s Federal Court heard the Tickle v Giggle case this April. At the heart of the case was the question of whether Roxanne Tickle, who has a modified birth certificate, a woman’s name, and claims to feel like a woman, is, in fact, a woman. It’s also about whether he has suffered discrimination. There’s a seeming conflict between sex-based rights and gender-identity rights. Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act is confusing on the matter and this case might clear it up.

The implications of the ruling are big. I will try, for a moment to make it clear to those with kneejerk reactions to the words woman and man: 51% of the human population are born with a vagina. Our right to do things by ourselves, on own own terms, without involving or seeking permission from the other 49% of the population is at stake. Our right to freedom is at stake. Our right to freedom of belief, to decide for ourselves how we define womanhood, is at stake. Also at stake is our right to freedom of speech: to say that however Roxanne Tickle identifies, we have the right to say he’s a man. At stake is the wider issue of whether males get to control females—to control us, to ignore our consent, and to violate our clearly stated boundaries.

The Federal Court ruling is due sometime in the next three months. With neither side willing to back down, and both sides likely to appeal if the ruling does not go in their favour, the case is likely to end up in Australia’s High Court.

What happened at the meeting and who spoke?

Here are a few notes from the meeting, and a little bit of background on the speakers who have been called such vile names. I’ve paraphrased what they said and this is a fraction of what was said but I wanted to capture some of the substance and flavour of the discussion. I wanted to combat the lies.

Jill Ovens

The event, one of several across the country, featuring Sall Grover, was organised by the Women’s Rights Party. The Party’s policies do not, wonder of wonders, promote attacking trans people or denying their humanity. The Party focuses on women’s rights and believes in human rights for everyone.

“We are women and men who believe in democracy, equality and biological reality. Clarity about sex is critical for safeguarding the human rights of everybody.”

The event was chaired by Party leader Jill Ovens. Jill was a long time New Zealand Labour Party organiser, but, in 2023, over concerns about women’s rights, left Labour and founded the Women’s Rights Party.

Phillida Bunkle

In 1987 Phillida Bunkle with Sandra Coney wrote a landmark piece for Metro magazine. ‘An Unfortunate Experiment’ exposed the fact that some women with cervical cancer had, without knowledge or consent, been part of a research programme. As part of the research some of the women weren’t substantively treated and later developed cervical cancer. Some of them died. The ensuing Cartwright Inquiry and further work by Phillida and others radically transformed patients’ rights in New Zealand and embedded meaningful informed consent in our health system. Phillida was also MP for now defunct left-wing party, the Alliance.

Phillida talked about her concerns over youth gender affirmative care (puberty blockers etc). She argued that despite bandying around the term “informed consent” there is no way kids or young people can have meaningful informed consent because there is no quality information or evidence available about puberty blockers. The informed bit simply can’t happen. Phillida discussed the issue of competency. She is critical of the current situation where a single doctor gets to decide if a child, of any age whatsoever, is competent to consent to life-changing treatment.

Phillida also talked about the creation of the Health Commissioner as part of an independent health complaints resolution process. It was an excellent idea but has came at a cost. Patients aren’t able to sue doctors or other practitioners, and there is no way to appeal a Commissioner’s decision if you are unhappy with it. There is no legal recourse for those with grievances. She thinks it’s been easier to challenge the evidence-poor use of puberty blockers and gender affirming medicine in places where people can sue. Phillida proposed a system where Health Commissioner decisions could be challenged in court. Such a system, she thought, might allow for open fact-based discussions.

It was during Phillida’s talk that the protesters arrived and made their noise. They were trying to intimidate and drown out the voice of a woman who is a heroine to New Zealand feminists; a woman who is legendary for her role in standing up for the rights of a woman to be in control of decisions that affect her; a woman who has helped change and save lives. The protesters stood outside yelling, drumming and chanting. We couldn’t hear the words of the chants but we know it was probably something accusing those of us inside of hate, phobia and bigotry. We turned the mic up and, in time, they went away.

Jan Rivers

Jan, who worked in the public service for many years, researches, writes and speaks about how gender ideology has captured New Zealand institutions. At the Tuesday meeting she talked about how the role of public servants in giving frank and fair advice is compromised by institutions that buy in to gender ideology. She also talked about her despair about the erasure of lesbian communities, and of young lesbian women transitioning out of womanhood. She talked about detransitioners, some of whom she knows, and how it is their stories that keep her working in this space.

Jan discussed two markedly different cases due before our own Human Rights Review Tribunal and that touch on gender identity and related beliefs. Lesbian Action for Visibility in Aotearoa (LAVA) has lodged a discrimination claim against the board of Wellington Pride. In 2021, Wellington Pride cancelled a LAVA stall because of LAVA’s belief that males can not be females (or lesbians). In the second case a transgender man (a female who identifies as a man) has lodged a complaint against their employer Corrections NZ saying that they are routinely harassed, dead named and ridiculed at work because of their gender identity. They also complained about the lack of clear instruction as to whether they could undertake male tasks like physically searching male prisoners.

Sue Shone

Sue Shone is a lawyer who advocates for prisoners’ rights. She mentioned, in passing, that the Wellington Women’s Law Association has changed its membership criteria to include anyone who identifies as a woman, and from here launched into a discussion about the importance of language.

Sue mainly talked about the legal background to Tickle v Giggle. Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984 was a way to give local effect to the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In 2013 it was amended under Julia Gillard’s government. The 2013 amendments expanded the Act’s aims from preventing discrimination on the grounds of sex to also preventing discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status. Sue said putting the term ‘gender identity’ into laws or policies was problematic as it gave legal credence to the concept, suggesting it was a material reality, rather than a feeling or allegiance to a set of stereotypes.

Sue went on to discuss the New Zealand’s Law Commission’s issue paper on the protections for transgender, non-binary and intersex people under our own Human Rights Act. The paper is receiving submissions until 5pm on Thursday the 5th of September. Sue thinks it is really important that gender identity does not get put into the Act as it would appear to cement fiction as fact. A better strategy that both she and Sall agree on, is the inclusion of clauses that prevent discrimination on the grounds of sex stereotypes. This solution would protect the interests of both women and transgender people while remaining grounded in reality.

Sall Grover

Sall Grover was, of course, the main act. Sall talked about how the Giggle app came into being. It was a female-only app prompted by Sall’s own desire for a women’s community and to create a space for women to network free from sexual harassment. It was clear that, far from being motivated by any anti-trans sentiment, Sall was unaware of the fact that the defintion of female was being contested. She’d identified a gap in the market and was starting a commercial venture.

As Sall worked to bring the app into reality, she discovered artificial intelligence could be used to assess whether a photo of a face is male or female. The team settled on a system whereby people could take a selfie and submit it as part of their membership application. Sall decided to set AI screening at 94% accuracy. She erred on the side of letting people into the app to avoid any situation where women may have been inadvertently blocked. Any males who weren’t picked up by AI screening would be manually blocked. The plan was pretty simple: a female app for females.

Sall Grover

Sall soft launched the app (it was available on the app store, was still in test mode and didn’t have AI or security measures in place). Trans activists got wind of it and one morning in February 2020 she woke up to discover the app has been flooded with thousands of men joining the app accusing her of transphobia, bigotry and hate and leaving messages like “kill TERFs” as well as giving the app one star review. She had, before this, no knowledge of trans activists and had to google the term TERF (trans exclusive radical feminist). Sall dealt with it, removed all the trolls and went on to do a proper launch with the security protocols in place. Further attacks were thwarted though thousands of men did continue to leave poor reviews. Occasionally a male would get through the AI software and she would remove them, end of story. Women using the app told her over and over again the importance to them of a female-only space. Media and partners, once enthusiastic about Giggle, had by this time gone cold. The accusations of transphobia meant they stopped answering Sall’s calls.

Roxanne Tickle made it through the AI screening, Sall blocked him. He texted and rang Sall complaining about the block. Sall blocked him from her phone. In 2022, Sall is notified by the Australian Human Rights Commission that Roxanne Tickle has lodged a discrimination complaint against her on the grounds of gender identity discrimination. Tickle is demanding $200,000 for damages and aggravated damages because Sall refused to let him on the app and because Tickle felt insulted by Sall’s refusal to believe he is a woman. Tickle is making numerous demands. Not only does he want to be on the app, but for app moderators to ensure that nothing happens on the app that might offend him. During the meeting Sall noted that not only does a male want the courts to give him access to a female-only space, he wants the courts to let him control it.

Sall, it should be noted, has not attempted to stop anyone else from having an app based on criteria meaningful to them. She has only tried to stop males, as she defines them, coming on to an app she created for females. Females who identify as transgender, male or something else are welcomed on the app.

Sall, like Sue, discussed CEDAW. CEDAW has been ratified by 189 countries and, despite attempts from activists, it remains a solid, untampered with piece of international human rights law that is useful in the fight for women’s rights. Sall also discussed the Yogyakarta Principles. The Principles are often used to bolster claims made by trans rights activists despite it not being ratified by any countries. As an aside, our own Human Rights Commission, and following its lead some government organisations, use the Yogyakarta Principles as guidance for their own position on trans rights. The Principles are an untenable list of demands centred on the idea that gender identity is a Very True and Universal Thing that is legions more important than biological sex.

Women talking

The attempts to disrupt both the Giggle app and Tuesday night’s meeting are attempts to silence and shut down women.

They are attempts to stop women talking with each other, to say out loud what’s happening and to stop them participating in public life. No matter what flag its wrapped in, no matter the chants that accompany it, these are activists trying to shut women up.

Shutting up women is becoming an ugly habit in New Zealand. Councils, libraries, government departments, politicians, universities, crowds in Albert Park have all caught the bug. And why? Because trans activists, with the cooperation of public institutions, are terrified of certain scientific and material truths that disrupt their ideology. If the truth that men cannot become women is admitted, if it’s spoken out loud, their precarious towers come tumbling down.

In the tradition of fundamentalist religion, the truth is recast as an existential threat and those who state it as sinners.

Some links

Giggle crowdfunding provides updates and summaries of the case.

Sall discusses Tickle v Giggle on Andrew Gold’s Heretics podcast

Sall discusses women’s rights and believing men aren’t women on New Zealander Michael Goldwater’s Shape of Dialogue podcast

Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act 1984

Women’s Rights Party are hosting Sall. It stood 12 candidates in the 2023 New Zealand general election.

Speak Up For Women is a New Zealand group works to protect the rights of women and girls. They’re developing their response to the Law Commission issues paper on the Human Rights Act. Their attempts to discuss and publicise the impact of laws such as self-ID have been subject to almost continuous sabotage from trans rights activists.

The Law Commission’s issues paper: Ia Tangata: A review of the protections in the Human Rights Act 1993 for people who are transgender, people who are non-binary and people with innate variations of sex characteristics open for submissions until 5 September.

New Zealand’s Human Rights Act 1993.

The NZ Human Rights Commission (who declare their allegiance to the increasingly batty Yogyakarta Principles-there’s a Yogyakarta+10 now-despite the original never being adopted by the UN or ratified). The Human Rights Commission take the position that the definition of sex in the Human Rights Act includes gender identity and gender expression. This has never been tested in court.

Background on LAVA’s case against Wellington Pride

A write up of the trans correction officer’s claim against their employer