China’s transgender community has been celebrating what’s seen as a landmark victory against employment discrimination, after a Beijing court ruled in favor of a trans woman who was fired after she had sex reassignment surgery.

In a rare ruling on discrimination against transgender people, the court decided that e-commerce platform Beijing Dangdang Information Technology Co. Ltd. was wrong to fire an employee for “absence of work” after she took two months of leave for the surgery in 2018, according to the court’s written judgment (link in Chinese).

The court issued its ruling in January, but it seems to have only come to wider attention recently.

The court ruled that the employee, surnamed Gao, could reinstate her labor contract with Dangdang and the company should pay her overdue salary of about 120,000 yuan ($17,069). The court also said that Gao has the right to use the office’s women’s toilet and other colleagues should accept her identity and work with her with an inclusive mentality. The company had claimed that Gao’s colleagues would feel uneasy about her using the toilets for either men or women. Read more via Caixing Global