As hundreds gather in Amsterdam for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health symposium, a court in the southwestern province of Guizhou on Friday heard China’s first claim of unfair dismissal on the basis of transgender discrimination. No ruling was made and the case is expected to continue for some time.

Mr. C is a 28-year-old transgender man who says he was dismissed after just one week because his employer, Ciming Checkup, was uncomfortable with how his appearance might impact the company’s image. Mr. C lives as a man and wears male clothing but his ID is marked female as per his sex assigned at birth. The company says he was dismissed due to poor work performance.

Lawyer Huang Sha told Sixth Tone that he and Mr. C are challenging the legitimacy of evidence produced by Ciming during the labor arbitration, as he believes the company falsified the date on some documents.

Mr. C said that he has several recordings of conversations in which company staff express satisfaction with his work performance but bring up the issue of his gender expression. But in May’s labor arbitration, the arbitrator ruled that the recordings were inadmissible as evidence because they were “personal conversations” between Mr. C and other Ciming employees whose opinions didn't represent the company's management. Read more via Sixth Tone