Georgia can resume enforcing its ban on hormone replacement therapy for transgender youth, judge says

A supporter of the transgender and non-binary community strolls through the city's Midtown district during Gay Pride Festival's Transgender Rights March in Atlanta on Oct. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Robin Rayne)

Georgia can resume enforcing a ban on hormone replacement therapy for transgender people under 18, a judge ruled Tuesday, putting her previous order blocking the ban on hold after a federal appeals court allowed Alabama to enforce a similar restriction.

Attorneys for the state had asked Judge Sarah Geraghty to vacate the preliminary injunction in light of the Alabama decision.

Geraghty did not go that far, but she also said keeping her injunction in place was not possible after last month’s ruling on Alabama’s law by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Georgia. She instead issued a stay, or hold, on her injunction in anticipation of a possible rehearing of the Alabama case before a larger panel of the court’s judges.