A trans woman in Russia has won a landmark case of workplace discrimination.
Anastasia Vasilyeva was fired from her job at a printing press, where she had been working for 10 years, in July 2017 after changing the gender marker on her official ID from male to female.
Her employer cited a Russian law which bars women from taking up certain jobs in more than 35 different industries that are deemed to be “dangerous” or “arduous” in order to protect their safety and reproductive health.
This list of over 450 specific jobs was introduced under President Vladimir Putin in 2000, with critics likening it to Soviet-era regulations.
On Tuesday, the Frunze District Court ruled that Vasilyeva was unlawfully fired and awarded her with 10,000 rubles (£118.70) in damages and 1.85 million rubles (£22,000) for the two years of lost wages.
Defending Vasilyeva in court was Maksim Olenichev, who told RFE/RL that his client’s victory set a “very important precedent” for future cases regarding LGBTQ people.
“For the first time in Russia, a transgender person has managed to defend her labor rights in court,” they said.
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