had made minimal use of the Giggle App before her removal: see [113] above. I accept Ms Grover's evidence (at [114] above) that Ms Tickle had made no interactions or connections with other Giggle App users, and had not made posts or contributions, especially in the absence of any evidence from Ms Tickle that she did so. The material impact of Ms Tickle being denied the Giggle App's services has therefore not been proven to be more than minimal. Her contemporaneous conduct, explained by her, is that she had given up using the Giggle App because she had found there were not many users to connect with at the time.
227 Despite that conclusion, the emotional effects of her gender identity being denied have some significance. She says that this has upset her greatly. However, I am unable to attribute responsibility to the respondents for her finding this, in her words, exhausting and draining, to have to go to great lengths to prove that she is a woman. Overall, Ms Tickle's evidence as to loss or damage is slight, if not minimal. It does not rise higher than a modest degree of hurt feelings. Taking all of these considerations into account, I find a sufficient basis has been established to make orders for a modest award of compensatory damages.
(iii) Conclusions as to general damages
228 Indirect gender identity discrimination has been established and is compensable, but I conclude that it was brought on a point of principle rather than due to any lasting hurt or disadvantage. Ms Tickle's evidence was that she was not really all that interested in actually using the Giggle App. Her evidence went no further than establishing that she wanted the continued ability to access the Giggle App, rather than having any express or implied intention to actually access it or otherwise use it.
229 As this seems to be the first gender identity discrimination case, there are no prior damage awards to use as any kind of yardstick as to what might be appropriate. I have had regard to the outcomes in a range of other kinds of discrimination cases identified by Mortimer CJ in Kaplan v State of Victoria (No 8) [2023] FCA 1092 at [1640]. However, that has not advanced things very much due to the absence of any yardstick basis for the assessment of an appropriate quantum of damages in this specific area. In the absence of any quantifying evidence, this was the widest and most unguided discretion to exercise, not unlike civil penalty imposition or criminal fine imposition for a new area of proscribed conduct.
230 The features of the conduct that took place have been considered in some detail in these reasons. I am left with an exercise akin to penalty or fine imposition of instinctive synthesis in which there is no single right or wrong figure, there being nothing precise such as proven
