In his decision issued from the bench, Moody also rejected the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and his preliminary injunction will stand until he issues a final decision on the plaintiffs’ full complaint, according to Kacie Glenn, a spokeswoman for the judge.
“This ruling sends a clear message to states across the country that gender-affirming care is life-saving care, and we won’t let politicians in Arkansas — or anywhere else — take it away,” said Holly Dickson, the executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, in a statement.
“We won’t rest until this cruel and unconstitutional law is struck down for good,” she added.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said later Wednesday that she plans to appeal the decision, claiming in a statement that the ACLU is using “our children as pawns for their own social agenda.”
But while Rutledge vowed to “aggressively defend” the law, Hutchinson said “the act was too extreme and did not provide any relief for those young people currently undergoing hormone treatment with the consent of their parents and under the care of a physician.”
“If the act would have been more limited, such as prohibiting sex reassignment surgery for those under 18, then I suspect the outcome would have been different,” the governor added in a statement.
Under the law, young people would not be able to access puberty-blockers, a treatment option for transgender youth that is used to prevent the onset of puberty. The measure also bans so-called cross-hormone therapy, a gender-affirming treatment that allows for trans people to change their physical appearances to be more consistent with their gender identities. The bill makes what it calls an “exception” for some intersex people with unspecified chromosomal makeup and hormone production, and those with difficulties resulting from previous gender-affirming treatments.
The ACLU argued in the lawsuit that under the law, trans youth in Arkansas “will be unable to obtain medical care that their doctors and parents agree they need — and those already receiving care will have their treatment abruptly halted — which could have serious and potentially life-threatening consequences.”
LGBTQ and medical advocates had strongly opposed the legislation, which they feared could have significant negative impacts on trans youth, who have a much greater risk of attempting suicide, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Chase Strangio, the deputy director for transgender justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said on Wednesday that the organization “warned lawmakers that if they passed laws attacking trans people that they would see us in court.”
“Our work in Arkansas and around the country is far from over — including with this law,” he said in a statement.
This story has been updated with a statement from Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
CNN’s Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.