A transgender woman is suing her former China employer in a landmark case after being fired following gender reassignment surgery. The woman, surnamed Yang, is taking legal action against the eastern city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province.
Photo: Ludovic Bertron
Yang was advised to quit her job after returning to work at a media company in her new identity as a post-op transgender woman earlier this year. She refused to stand down but was fired a month later, with her employer claiming her dismissal was because of lateness.
Yang is suing under an equal employment rights law that came into affect last year. It is the first time the law has been used in an attempt to protect the rights of transgender employees in China. Yang is seeking a public apology and compensation from her former employer in a move that could blaze the trail for similar cases in the future.
Zhu Bao, a Beijing attorney who has worked with LGBT clients in China before, told Inkstone that he hopes the case will, “encourage many more people to come out and fight for their rights in workplaces and in life”.
Duan Rongfeng, a fundraiser for a China-based LGBT advocacy group, added that Chinese workplaces still have a long way to go in protecting the rights of transgender employees. “In China, the majority of the more socially progressive companies that are having these conversations are still figuring out how to be more inclusive to their homosexual employees. They have yet to start thinking about the transgender communities.”
Yang’s case has been widely covered by Chinese journalists and is trending on social media. “The law will just be a dead law if nobody uses it,” she told the AFP.
Warning:The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.
Keywords: transgender woman sues China employer China employer
All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.
Please login to add a comment. Click here to login immediately.
Avoid " Expert International Education" with jobs in Xiamen / Fuzhou.high schools and colleges. Innumerable problems my wife had with this company and I ended up having to spend a lot of time and money getting her out of there and back to UK. Avoid. China seems to be getting less and less hospitable. Sad
Dec 29, 2019 17:19 Report Abuse
So is it a biological woman or man? I get confused with how they word it. They say "woman" but is that before or after? It all just PC garbage anyway.
Dec 21, 2019 09:56 Report Abuse
This is a really nice platform to shares your blogs and multiple posts. i impressed with this. <a href="https://gooff.org/"> office setup</a>
Dec 18, 2019 15:51 Report Abuse
with an alias like that, are you going to SPAM? to be honest i can't see why anyone would chose such an alias otherwise.
Dec 18, 2019 19:56 Report Abuse