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A direction sign for the reception desk for refugee applications is seen at the entrance of Seoul Immigration Office in Yangcheon District. Yonhap

An appellate court has granted refugee status to a transgender Malaysian national, recognizing persecution based on sexual orientation as a basis for asylum for the first time, sources said Thursday.

The Seoul High Court has recently delivered the ruling in a suit the Malaysian filed against the Seoul office of the Korea Immigration Service to reverse its decision not to give refugee status to her, according to the legal sources.

A lower district court had earlier ruled in favor of the immigration office.

Born biologically male, the Malaysian has identified as a woman since age 10, and received feminizing hormone therapy and dressed as a woman since age 15.

After getting arrested, fined and briefly detained in 2014 under Shariah, a body of Islamic law that punishes homosexuality, for dressing as a woman, she sought asylum in Korea in July 2017 only to have the application denied by the immigration service.

The lower court initially ruled in favor of the immigration service on the grounds that the Malaysian had been employed in her country in the capacity of a transgender person and that did not conform to her claim of persecution.

Overturning the decision, the appellate court recognized her record of arrest and punishment as persecution as defined in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the sources said.

"The complainant has been arrested and punished for revealing her sexual identity and she is currently not in a position to be able to seek state help against the threat she faces," the court said. (Yonhap)