Banning a transgender woman from a female-only app constituted discrimination, a court has found in a landmark gender identity case.

The Federal Court on Friday handed down its judgment in an appeal by Sall Grover against a decision by Justice Robert Bromwich, who found she unlawfully discriminated against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle after rejecting her from the female-only Giggle app because she appeared to be a man.

The landmark judgment found Ms Tickle was unlawfully discriminated against when she was removed from the women-only app because she is transgender.

The court found the conduct amounted to ‘direct discrimination’ under Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act.

‘The Full Court has found that Giggle and Ms Grover both excluded Ms Tickle from the Giggle app and refused to readmit her on the basis of her gender-related appearance by reference to her selfie, and that this amounted to direct discrimination by reference to a characteristic that pertains to people of Ms Tickle’s gender identity as a transgender woman,’ Justice Melissa Perry said, delivering the decision.

The court found Grover excluded Ms Tickle from access to the Giggle app on the basis of her gender-related appearance and that she was treated less favourably than a woman assigned female at birth.

The court said the case involved issues that divide public opinion, but stressed its role was simply to interpret and apply the Sex Discrimination Act.

Under the Sex Discrimination Act, businesses cannot discriminate against someone because of their gender identity.

The landmark ruling could also have implications for other female-only spaces and is likely to reignite debate over the definition of a woman.

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Roxanne Tickle has won a landmark gender identity discrimination case after the Federal Court found she was unlawfully removed from the female-only Giggle app because she is transgender

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Sall Grover says she will take the controversial ‘what is a woman’ case to the High Court after losing her appeal in the Federal Court on Friday

Damages awarded to Ms Tickle have now been increased from $10,000 to $20,000, with the court citing aggravating conduct by Ms Grover.

Giggle and Ms Grover have also been ordered to pay Ms Tickle’s legal costs.

The judgement now lays the groundwork for a second appeal, with Ms Grover set to take the case to the high court.

‘I would like … there to be legislators that stepped in actually did their job and fixed because they could fix this for free in a week,’ she told News Corp.

‘But if I have to go to the High Court, I will.’

Ms Tickle, who was assigned male at birth, had undergone gender-affirming surgery and hormone treatments, identified as a woman with her family, friends and at work, and used women’s change rooms and shops in women’s clothing departments.

Her birth certificate records her sex as female.

‘Up until this instance, everybody has treated me as a woman,’ Ms Tickle previously said.