Debra Davis, a transgendered female from Minneapolis, might say her physical transition from male to female in 1998 took place overnight. One day, after 28 years working as a librarian at the 1700-student Southwest High School, Davis walked into a staff-development meeting and announced her decision to come out as the transgendered person she had long kept closeted. She then left the building "in my male role on Friday and came back on Monday as Debra."

Her story might have ended just as quickly, since the Minneapolis Public Schools overwhelmingly embraced Davis’s male-to-female transition. But Davis’s outing caused a stir among conservatives in the city, prompting the local press to camp out on the Southwest High front lawn in the spring of 1998, which in turn prompted then-principal Robert McCauley to tell reporters that, as far as he was concerned, the school district’s first transgendered employee was "the biggest nonevent" in its history. That is, until a Southwest High teacher named Carla Cruzan entered the picture, or, rather, the women’s bathroom — and spotted Davis. Cruzan complained to school officials, and then filed a lawsuit against the district for violating her religious freedom and creating a hostile workplace. Last week — four years after Davis’s coming out — Cruzan lost her legal fight.

"It’s a watershed victory for the rights of transgendered people," says Tamara Lange, of the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, describing the June 20 decision favoring Davis and the district, handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis.

Last Thursday, the federal court ruled that the Minneapolis schools had not violated Cruzan’s religious freedom or fostered a hostile workplace simply by allowing Davis to use the women’s restrooms. The school district, the court noted, did not force Cruzan to share a bathroom with Davis; indeed, officials had provided Cruzan with ready access to several other bathrooms, including an individual restroom and a female students’ restroom that Davis never used. Explains Lange, "This court turned around and said the school district isn’t required to accommodate Cruzan’s religious beliefs by imposing a burden on other employees." The courts made it perfectly clear that the district’s policy was appropriate and legal.

According to Lange, who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the district, the case (Cruzan v. Minneapolis Public Schools) marks one of the first involving transgendered rights in the workplace to reach the appellate-court level. That means that the Minneapolis ruling could have ramifications for future cases across the country. Today, for instance, the ACLU is waging a legal battle in New York, where a landlord evicted an HIV/AIDS organization because its transgendered clients were using the bathrooms in the building. As for Davis, who has just retired from her librarian post this year, the court ruling offers her and the Minneapolis schools long-overdue vindication. "I’m proud of the school district," she says. "It has shown that you can meet the needs of transgendered people. You can do the right thing."