Tennessee's ban on providing care for transgender children has been reinstated by the court.

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Saturday that a Tennessee law preventing doctors from providing medical care, such as puberty-blocking medications and gender affirming surgery for transgender minors, can take effect right away.

According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, advocacy groups that had challenged Tennessee's law were unable to demonstrate that their arguments that it was unconstitutional were likely to succeed. The three-judge panel overturned a lower court ruling by a 2-1 margin, preventing Tennessee from enforcing the law while it was being appealed.
"Life-tenured federal judges should be wary of removing a vexing and novel topic of medical debate from the ebbs and flows of democracy by construing a largely unamendable federal constitution to occupy the field," appeals court judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote.

On Saturday morning, it was impossible to contact either the advocacy groups that brought the law under challenge or the state's attorney general.

Tennessee's law is a part of a growing number of Republican legislators' initiatives to impose new limitations on the medical care provided to young transgender people. The measure, according to lawmakers, was required to protect minors from suffering long-term harm. According to medical organizations, care that is gender affirming can even save lives.

It bans any medical procedure performed for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.

Federal judges have blocked five laws similar to Tennessee's from taking effect. Those judges found the laws violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.

The appeals court's decision Saturday said that absent a clear showing that Tennessee's law violated the Constitution, choices about medical care and protecting minors are best settled by state legislatures.

Judge Helen White said she believed Tennessee's law "is likely unconstitutional" as a type of sex discrimination.

Sutton wrote that the appeals court will try to reach a final decision about Tennessee's law by Sept. 30. "These initial views, we must acknowledge, are just that: initial," he wrote. "We may be wrong."