And I called my dad and said that this guy that we... who blocked off Giggle has called and texted my friend and said, block his number, don't tell your mother. The federal court has ruled the exclusion of a transgender woman from a female-only app constituted unlawful discrimination. Things have actually gotten even worse and he's really going for you now, Roxy Tickle.
You can stand up for yourself. It feels personal. I feel like I'm being abused. Basically bankrupt me. It does not make Australia a safer place for women. And this is a slippery slope. Because I know that a man isn't a woman. This affects everyone. Men should also be able to say, nope, that's man. He's very blokey.
This is a big bloke playing hockey, running around on a stick. The judge declared that sex is changeable. So I'm now appealing that decision because sex is not changeable. Absolutely shocking. The judge was yelling at my barrister. It's very uncomfortable. When Sal's case arose, it's like, well, this is the one we've been waiting for. It's a cool big eagle. It's not on the basis of biological sex. It's now on the basis of gender identities. I mean, what's a female mannerism or a male mannerism?
Why should someone who's adhering to stereotypes within that have more rights? is completely captured. Roxie Tickle. Roxanne Tickle. Roxanne Tickle. A lawful discrimination. Who's representing Roxie Tickle? Is it like a llama or something? Catherine Deaves, Sal Grover, welcome to the show. Sal, take me a little bit through that story. We've had you on the podcast before. It's a pleasure to have you back all the way from Australia. As much as you can, tell me the summary of this mad story.
Okay, so basically in 2018, I got the idea to create a woman-only app. We're getting ready to launch it. It's called Giggle. Getting ready to launch it 7th of February 2020. Still just doing beta testing. Woke up to thousands upon thousands of one-star reviews saying it was transphobic and you're tough and just destroying it, basically. It cancelled right out of the gates. But when you have...
Those one-star reviews on the App Store and Google Play you just sent into an algorithmic black hole. I had no idea what was going on. I'd never heard the word TERF before. Researched it, found out that they were saying men are women. Cut to... 2022, we decided to just tread water with the app for a while. I thought it would blow over pretty quickly because it was so stupid. 2022, I got an Australian Human Rights Commission complaint.
for gender identity discrimination because I had removed a man and, unbeknownst to me, he claims to be a woman. And so I refused to settle in the Australian Human Rights Commission because I would have had to... Pay him $20,000. Apologize to him. Let him on the app. Let all men who claim to be women on the app moderate the content so that men who claim to be women weren't offended and go to sex and gender education. And I was like, I'm agreeing to none of this.
So because we wasn't settled in the AHRC, it escalated to federal court. It was heard in federal court last year. In April, in August, we got the decision and I lost. And what was essentially the first big what is a woman case that was putting sex and gender identity.
Against each other, the judge ruled not only that gender identity has more weight in the Sex Discrimination Act, but he declared that sex is changeable. So I'm now appealing that decision because sex is not changeable. And yeah, so I'm in the next stage. appeal and if we lose this one go to the high court Catherine what is your role and how did you start getting involved in this
So I am Sal's instructed solicitor, Sal and Giggle for Girls. So I've been with her on this journey since the beginning. I recall getting the phone call the first time Tickle lodged his complaint. And for me getting into the journey, I had three.
baby girls. I thought I'd better brush up on my feminism. I didn't like where LibFem was going. So I looked into radical feminism and I came across Megan Murphy and discovered about TERFs and TERFery and then started asking questions and started getting pushed. back on social media.
and realised we had a massive problem. So through my legal studies, I came to law later in life. I went and looked up the Sex Discrimination Act, which is at the heart of Sal's case, and realised they'd already put in gender identity a couple of days.
after my twins were born. So I thought, my goodness, my twins had women's rights for about two days of their life and then they were taken away. And then, you know, in speaking with sort of turfy-minded lawyers, realised that we needed... a case where we could test this conflict that was created between sex and gender identity and when Sal's case arose it's like well this is the one we've been waiting for.
Tickle versus giggle. It's stupidest name ever. It's stupid. I mean, it's sort of good for publicity in a way, though, isn't it? Because it's so ridiculous. I don't know. I actually think that it probably harmed it for a while, maybe even still. But I think for a long time, people thought that it was just something.
that was so stupid like how could you take like something called tickle v giggle seriously and probably dismissed it not going not realizing like no this is like the big women's rights case of this era
in Australia, and then it has implications for other countries, especially common law countries. So, yeah, I mean, I was a screenwriter in sort of my former life before I came into all of this. And if I was writing... a screenplay about like this crazy world that we've been living in for the last decade and made like one of the central court cases tickle v giggle i'm sure the first script note would have been like
No one's going to believe that. It's too ridiculous. It's so stupid. Do we know what his real name or dead name is? Tickle is his actual last name. That is the name, okay. That is his actual last name, but he obviously wasn't given Roxy as a name when he was born. Roxy's a bit porn star. I think. A stripper or a dog? It could be a dog. I mean, Sting, Roxanne, isn't it? I mean, it is the sort of porn star. It's not like just, I don't know, what's a genital?
There's many who claim to be women very rarely. There's not a lot of, like, Cheryls. Like, you know, just... Although there is a type of trans person who does seem to sort of wear their mother, don't they? They could be Cheryls. Yes, there are those... few but for the most part they're much more like there's lots of like Lexis and like Lily Chloe yeah what is that what are those names what what is are those sort of sexy names don't know girly girly
Young, young. It's a bit creepy, isn't it? When Sal lost, was that... legally because i've actually so i've been told by people because i was just like outraged i was watching it live uh really late in england and i was going but i don't know anything about law but then people i know who have some sort of grounding in law say well well of course because that's what the law is in australia
So is it the judge's fault for being mental or is it the mental law? So when they put gender identity into the Sex Discrimination Act, they did create that. conflict because it's just sex and gender identity. So when the decision came out, I mean, you have to, when you have human rights, they are competing. So it is a balance. And obviously his honour decided to prioritise. you know, the feelings.
the gender identity of Roxanne Tickle over the sex-based rights of women and girls. But his honour did us a bit of a favour in that he went just beyond dealing with the gender identity discrimination and went and redefined the word sex.
in the way that it was sort of being applied through all our law and policy. So it actually gave us something to fight back against because up until then we were seeing... all the policies being written in favour of gender identity, whether it was sort of sport and language and so forth, and everyone keeps saying they...
They keep saying there is no issue here, even with respect to sport, there's no issue here. But we know in practicality when there is a conflict between a man and a woman and the man pretending to be a woman, they always pick the man. So we needed to have it written down in a decision so we could...
we could fight it. That was one of the things is that for years, people have been saying like, there's no issue or you guys are overreacting and this doesn't impact you or that sex and gender identity are completely different things. And so then we actually were able to push them to get this decision of going, no, no, it's literally as bad as what we're saying. Worse, even, I would argue. So does it say in the Australian law gender or sex is what someone defines themselves as?
Well, with the decision it does, but with the Sex Discrimination Act, I mean, they never define the word sex because everyone, that was... commonly understood. When they put the amendments in that put gender identity there, they removed the words woman and man. And they also changed opposite sex to different sex. So to set it up as if there's going to be multiple sexes. So they deliberately confounded what these concepts mean. Did you guys see Bill Maher last night on gender?
It's really scary. It's strange. People can't work out whether he was joking. Basically, he said, Trump has gone too far. We've got to be able to find a middle ground. Now we're back to saying there's only two sexes. It's like... Which is obviously ridiculous. I watch Bill Maher. I'm a fan. I know when he's joking. That didn't seem like a joke. No one knows. I didn't even consider that it was a joke. I'm hoping it was a joke because I like Bill Maher.
But this is the thing with gender identity ideology. It will make otherwise sane and intelligent people say the stupidest thing you've ever heard. This is mad. Yeah, I mean, it just... What would make a judge even say that sex is changeable? You know what I mean? You go like, how do you get to that point? It must be in Australian law now. It just must be, it's now this bonkers thing that's in the law.
That's right. They've put it in. And then when you look at the SDA, that relies on CEDAW, which is the United Nations Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. And when you look at the 189 signatories who signed that document, what his honour did was said that, yes, this now applies.
It's not on the basis of biological sex. It's now on the basis of gender identity. So when we look at the decision, this has the impact, has the potential to impact all those signatory nations because now CEDAW does not just... to, according to Australian law, women, biological women, who were granted those protection on the basis that they had a feminine body. And for that reason, they have been historically discriminated against.
but he's just expanded it to include this category of men. So now it's sort of meaningless. Oh my God, this is mad. So that was the, you lost that case, but my understanding is things have actually gotten even worse and he's really going for you now, Roxy Tickle. Yeah. So as I said, we are appealing, but so is he. Oh my God. So he's cross appealing. He is appealing the decision he won. So it was...
The decision was indirect gender identity discrimination, which is actually a decision that actually benefits trans activists in the sense that basically you don't even have to know that somebody... has a gender identity, to be discriminating against them and breaking the law. So that's what I was done for. I didn't know he had a gender identity, nor do I care. Tickle wants it upgraded to direct discrimination. He also wants damages upgraded from, he was awarded 10,000 and we can get into why.
It's quite a funny story. He wants it upgraded from 10,000 to at least 30,000, and he wants aggravated damages of at least 10,000. It feels personal. Vengeful. I'm in a rights fight. I want my rights and I want the rights of all women and girls. And I also actually want the rights of men to be able to say, this affects everyone. Men should also be able to say, nope, that's men.
Simple as that. Men should also be able to have male-only spaces for recreation, privacy, and dignity. I have no problem with that. But so I don't feel like he is in a rights fight. I feel he is. This is a... personal to me. Or a money grab. Yes. I mean, 30,000 is not nothing, is it? No, no, without a doubt. And I mean...
But also the next sort of fight that we'll have, we'll have an interlocutory hearing on the 7th of April. He's also going after me for costs. So our argument is this is public interest litigation. Everyone covers their own costs. His side is saying no. Sal can pay for his costs. There's like $400,000 from round one. Basically, we want a million dollars. From you? From me. Is he going to get that? Let's hope not. We're going to fight it out in court.
At first instance, I mean, he saw a cost capping application on the basis that he was impecunious, that he had pro bono lawyers, that this was public interest, and then to sort of shift the goalposts once. they've realised now that Sal's successfully fundraising is quite extraordinary. So that is a courtroom battle that we will be having. Yeah, it basically bankrupt me because I know that a man isn't a woman.
How does that work? Because if you don't have a million or whatever, how does it work if you're sued for a million pounds or dollars or whatever? You go bankrupt. That's what he seems to want. Were you surprised, Catherine, when he won the first time?
Not really. We had the hearing and it was quite a challenging three and a half days. And sitting in the courtroom, there were moments where you got the... feeling like with the way the judge's demeanour was with respect to how the matter was being run. And then also, you know, the way the AHRC got up and, you know, our arguments were somewhat truncated. They really wanted to wrap it up and we wanted more time. The other side were also...
you know, trying to formulate their arguments and the judge was very considerate of that. And then we had moments where it sort of wasn't hostile. Very, very hostile. The judge was yelling at my barrister. It was very uncomfortable. Who's representing Roxy Tickle? Is it like a llama or something? So he has a barrister and solicitors, just like I do.
You know, the Australian Human Rights Commission intervened in Tickle v. Giggle as amicus curia, which they have a statutory right to do. And it's not uncommon that they would intervene to basically be there to interpret the law, help the judge. The problem is the Australian Human Rights Commission.
is completely captured. This institution is not fit for purpose. I'm all for having human rights commissions. I think they can be a really good thing. This is an ideological commission at this point. They're all in on gender identity. day one since when I first got the complaint I was like these people are not considering that I also have human rights um and so they yeah I mean they're the ones that are doing the song and dance in the courtroom going
It spent like two hours trying to define gender identity, and they couldn't. They got it to a thought was basically the best they could come up with. Have we got to the point where it's the first time I'm even considering this, that human rights might not be a good thing. Obviously, rights are good for lots of people, but the way that they... can be hijacked and ideologically captured. I'm thinking not only of this whole trans situation, which has just captured all of these.
like lunatics at the very top of of the world right now but you know israel the un israel's had more resolutions against it than every country in the world combined you know and whether you'd like or dislike israel North Korea should have a few of those, shouldn't they? And Saudi Arabia and Syria. So these are just ideologues now. So do you think, I mean, the human rights, have we gotten human rights wrong, maybe? Well, with respect to sales matter, where...
there is a big problem. So as I said, the SEA relies on CEDAW, but his honour also decided to rely on the ICCPR, which is the International Civil and Political Rights Convention. And in that, in Article 26, it's got, you cannot be discriminated against on the basis of categories like race, religion.
you know, national origin, those kinds of things, but also other status. And as we are learning, you know, words, the meaning of words in law is really, really important. And those other categories are discernible. They are objective. They are definable. Whereas when you have other status, I mean other examples are say migrant worker.
You know, that is objectively definable. But what Isona did was he slotted in gender identity into that sort of other status. But as you'll see, like with the definition in the SDA, it is completely nebulous. It's based on... Things like name, mannerisms, dress, which can just change from day to day, moment to moment. And they're not necessarily, I mean, what's a female mannerism or a male mannerism? And why should someone who's adhering to stereotypes
within that have more rights than say the rights that are granted on the basis of biological sex. So it's when these sort of conventions get sort of somewhat perverted and just... broadened and expanded beyond what the original draft is. conceived them to be that's when we start to get into trouble yeah is that and what you just explained sounds so conservative ultra conservative like if you dress a certain way that's a woman thing i've asked so many of these people what is it to be
a woman, for a man to say he's a woman. Some people say, well, it's how they walk. It's like, what is this woman walk? When I was being cross-examined during the hearing, the side barrister was asking me questions and she said something to the effect of,
you know mystical shops in the women's department doesn't she and i'm like i don't i don't know i don't know this person so do i if i get i get my wife a t-shirt or something not that i've ever done that because i'd get it wrong not for shoes bloody hell i mean this is the thing and people um
who don't haven't followed the case won't and it shouldn't matter actually because i know some people on our sort of side they'll show pictures of how ridiculous looking some of those guys who think they're women are but the problem for me with that is well then when they do look right? Does that mean that they are women and they're not? And it's mean as well. We don't need to go back and look. But that being said, he's very blokey. This is a big bloke playing lacrosse or whatever it is, hockey.
running out of a stick this is bonkers um has he been getting in touch with you at all well so when tickle ever first became someone in my life is he is the only user of Giggle to have ever called and text my phone. Literally no one else ever has. And this happened at the end of 2021. I remember the day that I...
I can't remember which order it was. I didn't keep it or anything because it was something to the effect of like, my name's Roxy Tickle or something. You must have said his name because it's a name you'll remember. I feel like that's when I was introduced to the name.
been removed from the app. And I, because I had his phone number, I could just type it into the Google server. And that's because that was the only anchor we had for users. And I just saw a picture of a man and I called my dad and said that this guy that we have blocked off.
Giggle has called and texted my phone and Dad said, block his number, don't tell your mother. Because my mum sees the attacks that we all get, that women around the world get. And so, and then I just, you know when something really creepy has happened and you just block it out of your mind? Yeah.
That's what I did. And then I got the AHRC complaint a few months later. But I actually don't really talk about this that much, but it is something that actually does bother me. For the last three years, so he's blocked, obviously, on my Twitter, whatever you want to call it. I mean, he is constantly watching. And even minutes after I post something, even reply, he has screenshot it and then is mocking me. And he does it to Kath, too. Wow. Constantly.
It's stopped a little bit now. I feel like someone's actually said something to him, but it has stopped in the last little bit. He hasn't been doing it as much.
For the two years of the Tickleby Giggle case, he was mocking me all the time. And I was like, this is why women want to... woman only internet space so you are proving my point i want to get away from you i don't know you i don't like that you're doing this i've blocked you i've done everything i can i'd like to get away from you but i'm the one
In court, I'm told that I'm harassing him. And in court, are you sort of near? That's the first time I've ever been in a room with him. But I've literally never spoken to this man. Do you just hate him when you're seeing him there? I feel nothing towards him. Nothing. Like when this is all done. I will never think about him again, ever. I cannot wait. I will never mention his name again. I will move on with my life. I will run a woman-only app. I will provide for my daughter and probably...
My women's advocacy will probably be for women in Afghanistan once we finish this. But this is like clean this house first, then we'll go and deal with all of the other stuff. But yeah, I will never, ever think about him again. I feel nothing towards him.
this be able to clear itself up? Will we move on? What are some of the things, because you were both telling me there have been some recent things that are just bonkers that are going on at the moment with this case. So we've got the cross appeal, then there's the money, and then... Gosh, what else is happening? So, yeah, we've also got parties seeking to intervene. So interestingly, we have the Australian Christian Lobby. So they have put that they wish to...
speak for women of faith. And it's not just Christian women, but also they mention Muslim and Jewish women. And then we also have the Lesbian Action Group. Have you heard about what happened with the Lesbian Action Group in Australia? No. So they are a group, they sort of do events and then...
Things for Lesbians, based in Melbourne. They applied to the Australian Human Rights Commission to see if they could have an exemption to have female-only lesbian events like there's any other kind. And the Australian Human Rights Commission said no.
So they appealed that decision and the tribunal recently just came back and said, no. Oh, so you just cannot now just have lesbian women. We never go underground. Back in the closet. Yeah, basically like, and then you've got like the premier of the state in. Victoria just into Alan going just recently, she's like, there should be no discrimination to LGBTQI alphabet plus people. And it's like, but the first letter in that.
you're discriminating against them and you're doing it on the basis of sex because this is the problem with gender identity in law is that the moment that you're giving these privileges to men on the basis of gender identity, you are discriminating against women on the basis of sex. So it's not that there's less discrimination. There's more, and they've chosen their poison. They're siding with men.
And they're passing some crazy laws. I mean, for example, we just got sex self-ID in New South Wales at the end of last year. So that is going to be, I think it's going to be enacted in July. So that means you can go. to the registry and change your birth certificate, not just to man the opposite sex, but also to whatever you want, provided it's not profanity or symbols.
Australia doubling down on that somewhat and also with people, health practitioners being accused of conversion therapy practices. when de-transitioners or people who are struggling with trans identity, you know, practitioners who do believe in ROGD. um so there's going to be some fights around that so and then also just to like really just ram it in how
absolutely batshit insane Australia is. We've got hate speech laws now. So it's one year mandatory jail sentence for hate speech. So I don't know. I mean, we're going to prison for saying a man's a man.
oh my god so that that's like i mean that's what we're getting here as well but here do you notice a difference in terms of the turf i mean they call it turf island yes you have to feel it the thing is you what you have here are a lot of politicians and media who is active in this space, who is actually doing stuff.
Now imagine going to a country where the politicians just do not want to touch this, and the only sympathetic media we have is Sky News. And they're great, and they'll have us on, and we get to have a voice there. But we are preaching to the choir. It's just in this echo chamber. It's just the censorship. That's part of the reason why we're over here because if it was just me in Australia trying to talk about...
the case. It's just me walking along the street holding a paper cup saying, they're not women, give me money. It would just be next to impossible to bring awareness to it.
it's insane because people's image of australia is like guys you know having a barbie you know these sort of blokey blokes and blokey women actually that was a that was no offense i've defended the entire country but that was the that's the flight that's the flight of the concourse joke did you watch flight of the concourse they would always have the women as like like men's names with an a at the end so i can't remember like brusa but you met brusa
Rosa and so on, this Shayla and all of that. But not people who are going to go for the woke thing. And have they just... gone more than anyone else almost. What's New Zealand like? It must be even more. Australian people aren't going for this. Once you get out of the cities, out of Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne, everyone's really normal. They don't like this. what are the Sydney and Melbourne sort of they're like is there like a liberal elite like we get in London yeah
Yeah, a bit of a say. It depends on the electorate, whether they're conservative. I mean, you've got the city of Sydney that's completely captured by Woke. You've got sort of the inner west of Sydney, which we call the Pride Lands because it's just smothered in it.
In Rainbow Flags. So they're sort of neighbourhoods, but I spend a lot of time out of the city. And once you get into rural and regional and you talk about those blokey blokes, they exist. My husband's a tradie. He's an ex-copper. He gets around in hivies and a ute. the men in my life, in that, in my life.
in that part of my life are definitely, they hate it. And particularly if they're fathers of girls. So it's just the politicians and the media. We've got the ABC, which is similar, which is the same thing as the BBC. I mean, they're so woke, they even have.
their own channel called abc queer oh do they oh they do they do um and everything's just queer stuff yes there was a show please like me that was australia was quite good actually that was a queer one it had that woman in it the the lesbian australian comedian who's really woke do you know i mean It was a good show, actually, to be fair. Hang on. What is this channel? This TV channel? I can't believe that. ABC Queer.
So we've got BBC Wales, we've got BBC Welsh or something. It's like the Welsh one. And you've got the queer one. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, they're consistent, you know, trans identified people who are constantly being lionised. And there is no pushback. I mean, the first time that I think.
the ordinary people saw that there actually was a bit of a pushback was when I ran in the federal election in 2022 and they all completely lost their minds. Kath is who got gender identity onto the front page in Australia. Wow. She was running for... Palmer had been MP and news.com.au just.
discovered all of her tweets where she said that they'd been surgically mutilating children and whatnot and just went after her. And we were all emailing the journalist going, no, she's right. Here's the data. They don't care. They just... I'm always torn between there's that Posey Parker hold the line kind of thing. And then I'm wondering, do we actually have to try and convince normal people that people like you and me are not?
Nazis. We're just normal people who probably share most of their other beliefs, except for this one where like, no, no, we think you've got this wrong. Yeah. I mean...
I mean, I agree with the whole line in terms of that's what I'm doing. There's no wiggle room here. I'm holding it. But, yeah, I mean, we're just completely... normal people there's it's not like you you sort of you're labeled a bigot and so everyone assumes that you must have all of the like i don't even know what i don't even know what i would what i'm what it's expected of how my life is lived but you hate
minorities that's what people think i have a mixed race daughter like yeah and you hate her that's what that's what they think i don't know that is that is a good point though by the way because Time and time again, I find people who are seen as these horrible people who are anti-something tend to have a wife, husband, daughter, whatever, who are from the thing that they're supposed to hate. Other people would say, I hate immigrants. My wife's an immigrant.
Nigel Farage, supposed to hate Europe. His wife is European, I think French or something. Time and time again, I know the guys on trigonometry, I mean, Constantine's an immigrant and Francis is Venezuelan. He's not even, or his parents are. So like time and time again, it's people who I... guests don't need to prove anything and they can actually just look at it rationally yeah but it's not like it's not like we have like the then there is like some something trans
in our life. There isn't. The trans thing is different because it's mental. It is different. I mean, as I was saying, I have a fake plant in my living room and I call it my trans plant. That's about as close as I get to supporting this stupid ideology.
Trans is almost the opposite to what I was just saying, actually, because the ones who've got trans people in their lives, they have to go along with it. Well, yeah, exactly, because people will say things like this to you, like, you know, do you have any trans people in your life? You're like, yeah, well, I have met a lot.
more throughout this because there are people who call themselves trans who are actually sort of on our side. But, and I mean, I'll sit and chat with anyone. Like I've never, I would never be rude to anybody. Before all of this, had I, at some event or something, bumped into Tickle not knowing who he was, I would have been polite to him. I'd never call him a her.
I would never call him mystic or I would never call him her. But that's also the thing with any sort of friendship or relationship. If the moment someone is trying to dictate your language, they're not your friend. They don't respect you. They're trying to control you. And that's the problem with the ideology. You can't really be friends with somebody who is all in on it.
if they're actually going to try and impose it on you. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. Is there a way, do you have to then to win this next bit? When is the next bit? And do you have to change the way the words are written in the law? Is that even possible? You have to repeal the amendments. So once we get the decision, so we've got, we're at federal court. So we go to the full federal court because there are questions of fact and questions of law that need to be determined.
And then depending on that outcome, the next step would be have to apply for leave. to go to the High Court and then it will be determined in the High Court. But whatever the decision is, the High Court can't turn around and say to the legislature, well, you must change the law. Obviously, separation of powers exists. But they can say, you know, this law is unworkable and write the decision.
in such a way that then the legislators pick it up and then they make the appropriate amendments. So there's a few things, you know, we have to have the legal battle, we have to... I don't think we need to win the hearts and minds. We've pretty much got everyone on side with that, but then we have to get to the legislators. And as Sal mentioned, you know, we've had politicians who are very afraid to touch.
this issue and we've got a federal election coming up probably in April and we would really, I mean I'm still a member of the Liberal Party and we would really like to see our leader of the party pick this up and run with it because it is political low. hanging fruit. We've seen how successful Trump has been, simply by speaking plainly and sensibly and common sense about this.
But I don't know. I fear in Australia we're going to need to have more examples. We're going to need to be seeing more men on the playing fields and that to get into the media or men in prisons. Those sorts of stories haven't really worked their way out into the mainstream media. which shock and horrify everybody like the Isla Brysons and so forth. The censorship. I mean, they just weren't. Australia, in terms of per capita, we...
We have almost more men in women's prisons than anywhere else. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put together a document. I was talking to the Queensland committee hearing about self-ID.
And they were like, well, we have found no evidence that there's men in women's prisons. So with Rachel Woffing, who runs Women's Forum Australia, we put together a document and we got to like 73 names. And that was just the ones that we could easily Google. We don't even have your government resources. But I'm like... It was that easy to find out. No.
And we're also up against it with respect to how it's been, how all the government departments have been infiltrated. So we have an organisation in Australia called ACON, the AIDS Council of New South Wales. So it's basically replicated stonewall. in Australia, and they are substantially funded by the government. $17 million of their $25 million budget comes from government grants.
So what they have done is they take their ACON law, it's called the Australian Workplace Equality Index, and they go into every single government department. And we replicated what the English women did here, which is put in the FOIs. Prime Minister's Office, Department of Defence, AFP, which is Australian Federal Police.
Every government department, all the state government departments, now they're infiltrating the councils where they go in with their compliance documents and these organisations have to comply and they have to do it year upon year and then... I don't know, they get to go to some fancy corporate dinner and get handed an award. But this is where we see all these policies going in where, you know, the word mother's stripped out of maternity documents and, you know, gender neutral toilets.
You've got to elevate LGBTIQ candidates in terms of employment. You've got to celebrate all the Rainbow Day calendars. So we haven't even begun grappling with that, whereas Stonewall sort of was exposed like a few years ago. So that's been definitely run back. And I mean, that organisation's a shell of itself. But unfortunately for us, ACON continues to grow year on year in terms of their influence. And people are...
quite rightly terrified to take them on because obviously of what happens when you do. It's a weird thing because... The UK seems to follow whatever happens in the US a few years later. And I would have thought Australia would do the same thing. Or maybe, is it another couple of years behind? Or is it just fucked? I think, no, no, no. I'm like, actually, so we're sitting here.
painting a really bleak picture, I'm actually really optimistic. Right. It does follow. The US, whether you like it or not, sets the cultural zeitgeist for all of these, like UK, Canada, Australia. Yeah. And it's... increasingly getting to the stage that if you are a politician or a media figure who is like doubling down on this nonsense you just you look like an idiot i have no doubt that um that australia will pick up on it whether they do it in this upcoming election
Obviously, I really want them to because it would be really nice if they actually did get involved and changed the look like, actually, yeah, this isn't workable. We need to fix this legislation instead of leaving it up to a private citizen to raise, you know. $1 million in legal fees and then pay his and go bankrupt and whatnot. Maybe we'll just do our jobs. That would be cool. So I'd really like it if, yeah, they actually just did what they're there to actually do. But in the event that...
that they don't this time round. There'll be a loss. There'll be a crushing loss in the future. It's inevitable. It's going to be embarrassing for these people looking back, I think. Yeah. I mean, you always want to sort of have that like dignity and, you know, never rub someone's face in it or whatever. I don't think I'll be that dignified.
it is really hard isn't it because you sort of want to walk i mean the main thing is to get people on side and democratically all of us go okay that was silly but there is also like well okay yeah but you guys were screaming abuse at all of us yeah I mean you guys completely derailed some women's lives for years do you guys get a lot of abuse
Apparently I do. I mean, I've blocked so many trans activists. People say to me all the time, how do you cope? They're so horrible to you. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I mean, I will say that the case itself, like it feels like abuse. I feel like I'm being abused, not just by.
the applicant, but I feel like I'm being abused by the Australian Human Rights Commission, by the legal system. Whenever they're talking about, you know, stopping abuse against women, I'm like, you're fine with it. Yeah. And for me, obviously, during the federal election, that was next level. I needed 24-7 security. I had to send my husband and children.
hours out of Sydney um and then obviously all the media that came through and they were just dropping bombs every few hours and it's crazy you know you can't everyone says don't look at the media but you sort of
can't help yourself. And you're looking at all the comments. And Tim is saying, you have to remember there are people out there that support you. But I was off social media. But it gets to a point where one day you wake up and someone goes, oh, the Guardian's written an article. And you go. I actually genuinely don't care. I don't care.
I don't care about the comments. I don't care about the articles. I'm firm in my beliefs. I know I'm doing the right thing. And they can say whatever they want. And it's kind of like when your haters are, you know, coming after you like that, it means you're over your target. So you do... grow a thick very very thick skin i mean if you can't
Those sort of people, I think, just tend to go back to their own lives because it's pretty brutal. But in terms of views like Sal, I'll just block them all. If I get a comment from someone and I think, dare say that to my face and I'm like, probably wouldn't block, not interested in engaging with you. Yeah. One of the really funny things, no, it's not that funny, but.
But still like three years after she ran, media that doesn't like us will always prefer to camp as just the failed liberal candidate. It's been three years. People like someone always loses in an election. Like this is not a failure of like someone's career. It's just the chance you take.
But then we just actually had Suzanne Moore wrote an article for The Telegraph, and it's fantastic. She did such a great job. And she referred to Kath as a smart and elegant lawyer, a smart and glamorous lawyer. And we're like, well, you're from all the way to the...
to get a new title yeah go for a fairly right-wing uh newspaper i'm sure yeah the left one the lefty would still call you the failed whatever it's quite trumpian isn't it she's a failed lawyer she's a failure that's what's actually so crazy about like The trans activists and whatnot, their tactics are very similar to what they hate, which is apparently him, and then now apparently we're all, I don't know, Trump supporters now, King Turf.
Trump who came in and changed the zeitgeist. I keep saying it's like the guy with the horrible locker room talk is the one that's keeping men out of women's locker rooms in America. Seems to be the only way. You need to have like just someone who's enough of a nutter to just go. I just don't care. But I don't think he cares about women's rights or anything. He saw a political win. He cares about political wins. And it's like, it's the same. I don't particularly care why somebody...
goes and gets our rights back. As long as he does it. Yeah. I mean, you know, you've got to always remember back when women were getting the right to vote. I mean, they had to get men to give them... to do it, basically, the male politicians, because that's who was there. I can't imagine all those men actually, like these like feminists, there's a bunch of misogynists that would have done, that would have had, but they had no choice by that point, because it was just.
politically, they had to go and give them the vote. It was in their own best interest. So that's just how it is. I like what you were saying about you get to a point where your skin is thicker. There are some people who have not maybe done as much podcasting. Or sometimes there are people who are used to more the mainstream media and they'll come on the podcast and afterwards they keep messaging like, oh, you know what I said? Can you take that bit out? I'm worried about this and that.
when you've had what you guys have had and i've had this over the years like the amount of abuse you just don't care i go on podcasts and they go oh was that all right for you did you say that i'm gone i'm already in my car yeah i don't care next place yeah i mean it's just Did I say the N word by accident? Maybe. I don't care. I'm just going home. I know who I am. You know who you are.
The people watching this know who they are. And I think that's what we need to hammer home. You know who you are. We don't need to worry so much about some liberal lunatics. There's no such thing as transphobia. It's not real. It doesn't exist. Because I don't have an irrational... A phobia is an irrational fear of something. I do not have an irrational fear of...
Trans people. I suppose it's used phobia, though, more in the not like. I know phobia means that, but people use it. If we're bringing things back to what they actually mean, let's start there.
were using it in the hate way it's like no like I don't and also because this is not a defined group of people like I definitely do not hate young vulnerable women who are saying that they're boys too escape some sort of trauma or because they're terrified of womanhood i don't hate them at all do i hate autogynophiles yeah i don't have any i don't spend a lot of energy trying to find it in my heart to be generous to an autogynophile who cares but
The thing is, though, the phobia thing is like we use it for discrimination. Would you employ someone blah, blah, blah? And I don't want to ask you this because I don't want to put you on the spot. I want viewers to think, though. are they are we all like if you had someone like five people come for the job and they're all like equally as good but one of them was like saying that they were a woman or a llama or something maybe it would make you less likely to yeah because
I've thought a lot about this because there is, a lot of people will say, you know, of course, you know, and of course trans people could say they're trans should be able to be employed. But can you take something like that into the workplace? If you are a 50-year-old man who's now wearing... fishnet stockings and a miniskirt and using the woman's bathroom and making everyone call him like Brenda. Yeah. Oh no, that's a, that's a daggy name. It would be Lily, but you know, whatever it is.
Why should one, the workplace, why should the employer have to wear the cost of that if it's alienating customers? And why should all of the other employees, where are their rights? If they just have to suddenly be part of someone's sexual fetish in the workplace, you don't get up and go to work for that. No. So I think there actually is a question of how much you can bring something like that. If you're actually talking about gender identity for what it actually is, which is...
90% of the time, a sexual fetish. No, keep it up. Is it 90%, do you think? I don't know, I would say 99.9, but with men, yeah. I mean, there are like some, I mean, you've got some men, some young... vulnerable gay boys who have been groomed into that. Again, I don't hate them. I'm here. I want them helped as much as anyone else. But the headed snake is the deviants. And so you've got to...
treated as such. And then you've got the women who are most of them are vulnerable and autistic and lesbians and who have just been completely brainwashed by absolute nonsense. I think one of the difficult... One of the issues we've had here is that most women don't quite grasp the sexuality of men.
they don't grasp quite and and men most men don't want to be trans or whatever but i think we can uh and i don't want to i'm not saying i'm talking about myself but i think we can at least i'm the exception to the rule i'm the exception but we can we can like get ourselves to we can imagine that
You can sort of understand because men have this whole thing that obviously some women do as well, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think that's because so many women seem to be on the whole trans train. And I think they don't quite get that men have a bit of a deviant.
And this, you know, the way that porn has proliferated, the way you've got this positive sex positivity culture, it's allowing male sexuality to go into full flight. I mean, the reason we used to have shame, we used to have all these restrictions around marriage and sex. and whatever was to corral that. And in my view, I actually think that the good, kind, decent men, the ones, I mean, I don't think a lot of women actually understand what testosterone does to a man.
And I think, you know, when you've got a young boy who's socialised and he's brought up and he treats women properly and respectfully, we should be commending them for being able to control themselves and, you know, going and blowing off steam and going and playing sport. And so, for example, this is a theme that's come up. I thought you were going to say going to like clubs for women or escorts, blow off some steam and heading there. But sports, better, better. Go on, sorry.
you know, where they can go and play combat sport and whatever. But then we're seeing with these, some of these young women who are transitioning to men and they're interesting. horrific amounts of testosterone and their sex drive is off the chart and they're aggressive and they have not been raised to be able to cope with that level of testosterone. So you're seeing a lot of problems with some of these. young women.
I remember reading about in prisons as well, because we don't just have to worry about men in women's prisons. It's also women who are receiving testosterone in prisons who are suddenly acting blokey and aggressively. And Kira Bell, for example, she said once she took testosterone, she couldn't.
cry anymore and that was really interesting like okay so that's to do with uh hormones and things where that's why men don't cry so much i guess really weird what it does to you strange thing so when are we going to find out you know the next stage what happens and if if you get
killed by this. So we should, because the appeal will be heard in the federal court in Sydney in August. So we're going to have lots of little hearings leading up to it, but the main fight will happen in August in Sydney. It'll be three or four days. Usually, just so you know, an appeal in full federal court is usually one day. But because he's cross-appealing, it's blown out. Oh, my gosh. So just adds more expense, basically.
And then we should get a decision by December, hopefully. I mean, like hopefully it's December that we get that. And then you have 28 days to apply to appeal to the high court. So I've said from day one, like if... I have to, I'll go to the high court. And so, you know, if we were to win this round, it wouldn't be us taking it to the high court. It would be the other side. I see. But if we lose this round, it would be us taking it.
What's it like having this hang over you? Oh, gosh. Some days are harder than others. I was really jet-lagged on Tuesday, and so I was just a blubbering, crying mess. Because, you know what? I'm angry. I'm very resentful to Australian politicians that I have to go halfway around the world to be heard on this, to bring attention to what is happening in Australia. It's time away from my daughter.
Daughter is two and a half. These are the golden years. And I'm going to spend the first five years of her life, those golden years of child raising, doing this. I'll never forgive them. I will never, ever forgive them because there are some days where you are really, really stressed. You're not completely present. And I'm just like, how dare you? Whereas I, but I do, I spend a lot of.
A lot of energy making sure that none of this infiltrates her life. I mean, she's obviously, she's absolutely oblivious. I am waiting for when she just starts. She's starting to talk and I'm just waiting for the day where I just hear this. They're fucking men. She'll be so proud of you. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have this vision of when she's like 20 and I'm sitting having a drink together and I'm telling her, you know, what I was doing.
for the first few years of her life and her just sitting there going, I'm like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. And I'm like, you can say that because we won. But I do. I mean, sometimes when it's been really, really hard, I've never ever once thought of giving up, but you just...
You go like, oh gosh, I just need like a hit of energy or something. And I've looked at her and been like, I cannot send you out into the world where you cannot say no to men if they have an identity. It would be against the law for you to have a boundary from those men. just based on a declaration they can make. I absolutely know where can you send a girl out into the world like that. And it's not fair.
That our daughters have less rights than we do in Australia. And between the two of us and also the barrister, Bridie Nolan, we have nine girls. We have nine daughters. And I remember thinking when all this started and I was still a law student and I was talking to my husband about whether I should start speaking out in my own name. And I just thought...
If my future granddaughters say to me on my deathbed, well, when we lost our rights, Grandma, what were you doing? And I thought, I have to fight like that. We don't have a choice. Yeah. So the funny thing is with running this matter, I mean, the amount of conversations we have when we're hanging out washing or making the dinner and there's kids and there's dogs and we're strategizing and we're in our track. Yeah, it's just like this glamorous, glamorous law life.
Nothing like Alignabil. It's just, yeah, it's just like we're all mums and we all care. Like we're women, we want rights. We have daughters, we want them to have rights. And then everyone else, everyone knows a woman. And everyone knows which one is the woman. Like it's just enough's enough. Come on. It's got ridiculous, hasn't it? How can people help? Can they give to the crowd, the crowdfunding and things? So gigglecrowdfund.com is where.
We obviously take donations and I'm just endlessly grateful. I mean, we couldn't fight it without the help of people from all around the world because, I mean, like most people, I don't have millions of dollars just sitting to the side being like, oh, maybe I'll pay. some men who claims to be women's legal fees one day. And also on the crowdfund is information about the case and any time there are updates.
We only update when there's an actual big update. It's not like, oh, they sent another letter today or anything like that, because it's all pretty boring. But yeah, so we'll have the next hearing in April. There'll be more, I assume, along the way in terms of interveners and things like that. And then...
Yeah. Hopefully win this round. Oh, and we hope that... we're able to broadcast it on the federal court youtube channel so everyone who's donated their 10 pounds can get the show oh great yeah i hope so yeah and we'll put a link below as well who is a heretic that one of you admires does either of you think of one
My God, I forgot. Last time I said Helen Joyce and I still, I still maintain that. She's had enough. She's had enough. Yeah, no, I mean, who would I say? Now, you know what? The heretics that I most admire at this point are all of the women. Because there are some women, you know, they've gotten more of a profile or whatnot, but there are a lot of women who that, you know, are out there fighting this, you know, they don't, they're doing this just in their own time, their own back because they...
you know, they want their rights and they're risking their job or they have to do it so secretly so they don't lose their job. Yeah, I admire them. Do you think the same? I do. I do. Yeah. Fair play. Good. No more Helen Joyce. She's got enough. She's got big enough ego. Everybody's saying Helen Joyce. We love Helen Joyce. People, please do help with the crowd funder. We'll have that link below. Go and follow Catherine Deves and Sal Grover on the...
Twitter, X, X, do the X. Keep watching this show and hit the like and we've got to fight this. So please keep spreading the word.