[Oh hello, I've just noticed your username - another Marie - and I've sometimes been called Barking too😄]
I still haven't read through the ruling more carefully, but I got the impression that the judges [original+appeal judges] thought that serious 'harm' had been done to Dennis - intimidation, distress, shaming, name-calling by strangers, emotional injury, etc etc.
They didn't think that it was just a case of KS expressing an opinion, they decided it was personal and insulting to Dennis.
For instance, calling him a 'bloke in a dress' was mentioned as being beyond the limits of reasonable debate.
That's a bit Bananarama, isn't it? because I got the impression that simply saying 'Ms Dennis is a man' is 'vilification' in and of itself, so KS could have couched her opinion in the form of a Petrarchan Sonnet and it still would have been 'vilification' and therefore illegal.
So the apology and the post staying up for 3 months seem to be considered appropriate to match the level of embarrassment and distress caused to Dennis - if it's difficult and embarrassing for KS, that's the whole point.
I am not defending any of this I'm just trying to understand the judge's point of view, which seems to be more to do with compensating Dennis for 'vilification' than what KS believes.
The other thing I noticed about the ruling was that a lot of it was looking at specific points in the appeal, which claimed that the original judge had erred in law or misinterpreted it, and there was a long succession of 'no s/he didn't's = appeal dismissed.
As PPs have said, that's what comes of using an ideological instead of a biological definition of 'woman' in legislation.
Saying Dennis is a man is wrong in law, the law says he is a woman, and denying that, especially publicly and with strong words, is 'vilification' under the local laws, so I guess the appeal judge's hands were tied.