A federal court rejected Florida’s plea Friday to overturn a ruling that had prevented the state’s restrictive statute on gender-affirming care while the state filed an appeal.

The state’s implementation of SB 254, which limited transgender individuals’ access to gender-affirming medical care and outlawed it entirely for kids, was permanently stopped the previous month by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Florida became the first state to enact legislation limiting the availability of gender-affirming care for trans adults with the passage of the 2023 law, as reported by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), which submitted the original complaint towards the law on behalf of a family.

In June 2023, a federal judge temporarily suspended a portion of SB 254, but the order was restricted to the sections of the law that affected trans kids; it had no bearing on the limitations on adult care. A judge permanently blocked all legal restrictions on gender-affirming healthcare in June of this year, including laws imposed by the state’s medical boards and other legislative measures. The final verdict was appealed by the state of Florida, but a ruling on Thursday rejected that motion.

Judge Robert Hinkle of the federal district court stated in the 105-page paper, “The elephant in the room must be mentioned at the outset.” There is such a thing as gender identity. This is evident from the record.

Furthermore, he stated examples of lawmakers calling transgender people “mutants” and “demons,” asserting that trans identity “is simply philosophical or woke up or wokeism,” and claiming that the bill “preserves trans people” and “accepts who they are in the sight of God.” He additionally stated that “a few legislators acted from old-fashioned discriminatory animus.”

According to Hinkle, “discrimination towards transgender people will eventually decline, just as prejudice and sexism have.” As one civil rights activist once said, “The moral world has a long arc, but it swings towards justice.”