Sall Grover was forced to pull out of speaking at a women's rights rally in Sydney after a trans activist explicitly threatened to shoot her and the female campaigner standing beside her.
The insanity of her years long ordeal exposes the complete rot at the heart of Australian law. Grover, a 41 year old Gold Coast native, screenwriter, and Bond University graduate, built Giggle for Girls in 2020 as a safe social networking space exclusively for women. To keep men out, the app gated entry with facial recognition software backed by Grover’s own manual verification. In 2021, Roxanne Tickle, a biological male who identifies as a woman, submitted a selfie. Grover looked at the photo, did her job, and removed Tickle from the female only app.
That common sense decision launched an absurd legal circus. Instead of protecting a woman's right to single sex spaces, the legal system dragged Grover through the Federal Court twice and on to the doors of the High Court, simply for insisting that a female app be reserved for females. Now, for daring to argue that the word "woman" belongs back in federal law, she faces violent bullet threats while institutional power stands by and lets extremist intimidation dictate who is allowed to speak.
The threat arrived as a private social media message to Kirralie Smith, the Binary Australia spokeswoman ordered last December to pay $95,000 for vilifying two transgender footballers. The sender, who gave their name only as "Riles", told Smith they were going to put a bullet through her head and that she would suffer immense physical anguish. A second message gloated that Smith had lost $100,000, said it was not enough, and carried a photograph of Grover with the words "1 terf 1 bullet" printed across it. Smith has reported the messages to police.
"Terf" is short for trans exclusionary radical feminist, an insult trans activists use against women who argue that sex in law should mean biological sex, and a label Grover applies to herself.
Grover said she would not put herself or any other woman in harm's way over a rally, and that she has to remember she is her child's mother first. She is a single parent to a four year old daughter.
"We have been inundated with abuse, and it has been escalating."
This is the violent reality facing women who dare use the word terf as a badge of honour while demanding biological sex be recognised in federal law. Smith is speaking on Sunday regardless. She said she does not want a bullet in her head either, and that she wants women to have the freedom to speak about these issues, but that she will not be intimidated into staying home.
Executed Over Trans Activist Questions: Why Charlie Kirk's Death Haunts Sall Grover
Grover said Australia is living in a post Charlie Kirk world and that it makes her nervous. The reference is far more specific than a general remark about political violence.
Kirk was shot dead at Utah Valley University on 10 September 2025, about fifteen minutes into a campus question and answer event, while answering a question about transgender mass shooters. The sworn charging document filed by Utah investigators records it in those exact terms, stating Kirk "was answering a question about mass shootings by transgender individuals when a gunshot rang out". The student who put the question had asked how many transgender Americans had been mass shooters over the previous decade, and Kirk answered "Too many" before being asked how many mass shooters there had been in total. He was replying "Counting or not counting gang violence?" when a single round fired from a rooftop about 150 metres away hit him in the neck.
Tyler Robinson, then 22, is accused of firing it and faces seven charges including aggravated murder. He has not entered a plea, Utah prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and a judge is due to decide on 1 September whether the case proceeds to trial.
Prosecutors have formally pleaded that Robinson "intentionally selected Charlie Kirk because of Tyler James Robinson's belief or perception regarding Charlie Kirk's political expression". The same document sets out text messages in which Robinson allegedly told his roommate to look under his keyboard, where a note read "I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it", and in which he answered the question of why with "I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out."
That document describes the roommate as a biological male in a romantic relationship with Robinson, and records Robinson's mother telling police her son had grown more political and moved to the left before he began dating a roommate "who was transitioning genders". Utah governor Spencer Cox later confirmed publicly that the roommate was "a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female".
Cox said in the same interview that the partner had no knowledge of what was coming and was shocked to learn of it, and prosecutors granted immunity in April in exchange for a sworn statement. No one has alleged any role in the killing. Cox separately called Robinson "deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology", though he conceded the next day that the description came from accounts given by family members and an acquaintance, and the charging document makes no finding about Robinson's politics beyond what his mother told police.
Julia Gillard deleted the word "woman" from the Act in 2013
Neither Australian woman would be dragged before the courts today without a single disastrous legislative move. The Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Act 2013 was rammed into the House of Representatives on 21 March 2013 by Julia Gillard's attorney general Mark Dreyfus and forced through on 25 June in the dying months of her government. In one fell swoop, it systematically erased the clear definitions of "man" and "woman" that had protected female sex based rights since the Hawke government, replacing biological reality with the elastic concept of gender identity.
Under this radical rewrite, gender identity became defined as a person's "gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics, whether by way of medical intervention or not, and with or without regard to the person's designated sex at birth". In practice, a male needs zero surgery, zero hormones, and zero medical diagnosis to claim full protection inside spaces built for women.
Australian courts have aggressively applied the amendment as drafted. Handing down a crushing ruling against Grover in May, the Full Federal Court declared that "the definition of sex was intended by this parliament to not be binary and not be immutable", escalating the finding to direct discrimination and doubling her financial penalty to $20,000. Grover has been forced to ask the High Court for special leave to appeal, begging judges to decide whether the word "woman" retains any biological meaning in Australian law.
When confronted over the devastating change at the University of Manchester, Gillard dismissed public outrage, claiming concerns "were not raised by anyone" when the bill passed "because they simply weren't a matter of public discourse the way they are today". She brushed off the destruction of women's legal rights with a cold excuse: "It was a different time. So it is an error to uplift what we know now and the public discourse now and just putting it down to 14 years ago."
Labor and Greens block Senate debate to keep biological sex out of law
Three separate bills have been brought to the Senate to restore biological definitions to federal law, and not a single one was allowed to be debated. All three were systematically shut down before discussion could even begin.
Pauline Hanson introduced the first attempt on 12 September 2024. A first reading is virtually always a formal stepping stone, yet her bill was immediately struck down by 27 votes to 32, with Senate Journals recording the rare outcome in five words: "Bill negatived at first reading." She tried again on 29 June 2026, simply asking that the bill be restored to the Notice Paper for future consideration. That request was crushed 25 to 32, with Labor and Greens senators providing 31 of those votes.
Two days later, Michaelia Cash brought the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Restoring Common Sense and Recognising Biological Sex) Bill 2026. It was killed in the exact same sitting on 1 July, falling 21 votes to 30. Labor and the Greens supplied 28 of those 30 opposing votes, leaving the bill status registered as "Not Proceeding".
The Senate Procedural Information Bulletin logged that fortnight as a rare display of "bills falling at the first hurdle". While Grover and Smith face severe legal and financial penalties, Parliament three times refused to even open a discussion.
Hanson put the historical extremity of the shutdown on the record after being denied leave to speak, pointing to the 1914 Government Preference Prohibition Bill as one of the few comparable first reading defeats, an event that triggered the first double dissolution in Australian history. She warned: "Labor and the Greens have taken the highly unusual step of voting down a bill at its first reading that sought to reinforce the biological definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. This is a rare and alarming move that undermines our democratic process."
Meanwhile, a provision sitting untouched in the Act since 1984, Section 42, explicitly allows excluding individuals from "any competitive sporting activity in which the strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant" based on sex or gender identity. Yet no federal government has had the spine to use it to provide national direction.
Radical Protesters Smear Sall Grover With False Claims of Racism
A hostile counter protest branded "Terfs off our turf" has been booked for 11am on Sunday at Sydney Town Hall, directly targeting the women's rally scheduled an hour later. The aggressive demonstration was announced on 3 August in a joint Instagram push by three unincorporated activist groups: Pride in Protest, Trans Action Network, and Macquarie University Queer Collective.
Pride in Protest, formed in 2018, has a long history of radical street activism, including demanding police be banned from Mardi Gras and corporate sponsors stripped out. In February, the collective was barred from marching over hostile posts targeting a Jewish LGBTQ group, prompting shadow arts minister Chris Rath to declare Mardi Gras hijacked by left wing extremists.
Trans Action Network organised last November's Trans Day of Resistance rallies, while Rainbow Cumberland formed in western Sydney after a council attempted to pull same sex parenting books from libraries. Pride in Protest, Trans Action Network and Rainbow Cumberland are all unincorporated collectives with no ABN.
Their promotional flyer attacks Grover directly, declaring that "notoriously annoying TERF Sall Grover has called an anti-trans rally in Sydney Town Hall, we must put an end to this nightmare", slamming Giggle as an anti trans app whose facial recognition "doesn't work btw", and smearing her as "a racist transphobe".
Grover responded by serving a formal defamation concerns notice on Pride in Protest, Trans Action Network, Macquarie University Queer Collective, Rainbow Cumberland, and UNSW Queer Collective.
The record is clear: no court has ever found that Grover discriminated against anyone based on race. Race was never pleaded, never argued, and never evidenced in either her 2024 Federal Court trial or her May appeal, with neither judgment containing a single finding about race.
The baseless accusation stems entirely from 2019 research into American vendor software Kairos, which showed facial recognition tech misgendered darker skinned women 22.5% of the time. That flaw belonged to an external vendor, not Grover. Furthermore, software error was not why Tickle was removed from Giggle, as court records prove Tickle's selfie was accepted by the app software before Grover manually reviewed and removed Tickle afterwards.
Grover fiercely rejected the smear, stating, "I'm not a transphobe or a racist. It particularly upset me, because I have different races in my own family."
The account behind the threats has not been publicly identified and no one has been charged. While no connection has been made between the counter protest groups and the violent bullet threats sent to Smith, the smear campaign highlights the vicious, unfounded tactics deployed to destroy the reputation of women speaking out.
Mob Violence and Broken Ribs: How Protesters Target Conservative Events
Pauline Hanson walked into the Tower Hotel in Hawthorn on 3 August behind a line of Victoria Police Public Order Response officers, the state's riot squad, with mounted police on the road and the surrounding streets closed. Around 100 protesters had come to shut down One Nation's Victorian campaign launch, chanting "put the racist in the bin" at the 150 guests who had paid $120 a head to get in.
James Ashby, One Nation's national director, revealed protesters screamed "your kids want you dead" at attendees queuing outside, warning that security surrounding his leader has reached terrifying heights.
Ashby stated plainly, "We've been told that the security around Pauline Hanson is greater than that of our Prime Minister, which is a frightening thought that democracy has got to these levels."
The intimidation forced Victorian leader Warren Pickering to relocate his upper house ticket launch away from the steps of Victorian Parliament due to extreme safety risks.
The physical violence is escalating beyond verbal abuse. A One Nation staffer in her 60s was left with a broken rib at the Brisbane Ekka after four people allegedly confronted her at a party stall. One man allegedly swung her around and punched her, while a woman allegedly spat on her. Ashby recounted that the victim was rushed to hospital and forced to strip in front of police so officers could document her injuries.
The hostility has become so pervasive that Rebel News reporter Avi Yemini arrived at anti Hanson student walkouts on 13 August flanked by a six man private security team. When an aggressive protester snatched a microphone out of News24 reporter Georgie Dickerson's hands and fled, Yemini's security detail chased the attacker down and retrieved the equipment without a single police officer intervening.
Victoria Police remain constrained by political decisions. Three months into its first term, the Andrews government passed the Summary Offences Amendment (Move-On Laws) Bill 2015, stripping away key move on powers previously held by police. Section 6 of the Summary Offences Act now mandates that move on powers do "not apply in relation to a person who" is "demonstrating or protesting about a particular issue", or who is "speaking, bearing or otherwise identifying with a banner, placard or sign". While officers can hold a line, clearing aggressive protesters off a public footpath is no longer within their legal authority.
Despite the chaos, the women's rally proceeds at noon on Sunday, with Grover's name remaining on promotional material even as safety concerns force her off the stage. Both sides originally designated Sydney Town Hall, where the counter protest will assemble at 11am, but the women's rally has shifted location to the Martin Place amphitheatre on Pitt Street.
Grover's High Court application remains pending while Smith faces a $95,000 penalty. The word Julia Gillard stripped from the Act remains erased, and the last three legislative attempts to restore biological reality were killed before a single senator was forced to debate the issue on the record.
