Alabama can now enforce its gender-affirming care ban, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday.

The law, titled Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act, prohibits minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries. It also punishes not only doctors, but also “any other individual” who “prescribes or administers” the treatments with a felony conviction and up to 10 years in jail.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district judge’s injunction that had temporarily blocked the state from enforcing the ban.

A trial is scheduled for April 2 on whether to permanently block the law, but the appellate decision is a boost for Alabama’s efforts to keep the ban in place.

“Alabama takes this responsibility seriously by forbidding doctors from prescribing minors sex-modification procedures that have permanent and often irreversible effects. This a significant victory for our country, for children, and for common sense,” Attorney General Steve Marshall, a defendant in the case, said in a news release issued in response to the ruling.

The Eleventh Circuit Court wrote in the decision that the plaintiffs, who were parents, doctors and a pastor in Birmingham, “have not presented any authority that supports the existence of a constitutional right to ‘treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.”

U.S. District Judge Liles Burke put a temporary hold on parts of the law in May 2022 before it went into effect. In his preliminary injunction, Burke said the law is likely unconstitutional.

In his decision, Burke wrote that both the Supreme Court and appellate courts have held that “parents have a fundamental write to direct the medical care of their children subject to accepted medical standards,” and that people cannot be discriminated against on the basis of transgender or nonbinary identity.

But the federal court of appeals found Monday that Burke’s injunction was ‘erroneous,’ saying the law did not violate due process or equal protection.

“The district court determined that the law classifies on the basis of sex, when in reality the law simply reflects real, biological differences between males and females and equally restricts the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment for minors of both sexes,” Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee, wrote in the decision.