Employers cannot exclude transgender women from recruitment drives aimed at addressing the under-representation of women in the workforce, a human rights expert has warned.

The warning follows the High Court’s refusal to hear an appeal in a landmark ‘what is a woman’ discrimination case involving a transgender woman who was banned from a women-only social media app.

In 2021, Sall Grover, chief executive of Giggle for Girls, excluded transgender woman Roxanne Tickle from the women-only app after reviewing her photograph and deciding she was male.

Read more: Landmark ‘what is a woman’ ruling means Australian employers cannot exclude transgender women from female-only recruitment drives