HELENA — A district court judge in Missoula has put a hold on a new state law that requires Montanans to use the bathroom that aligns with their sex at birth.

On Friday, District Judge Shane Vannatta granted a preliminary injunction preventing the state from implementing House Bill 121 while a lawsuit challenging the bill continues. He had already placed a temporary restraining order on the bill last month.

HB 121, sponsored by Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, R-Billings, would require public schools, correctional facilities, other public buildings and domestic violence shelters to designate bathrooms, changing rooms and sleeping areas for either men or women, based on their biological sex at birth, and to “take reasonable steps” to keep the opposite sex out. Someone could then sue those facilities if they failed to take those steps and someone of the opposite sex used the space.

Plaintiffs, including transgender and intersex Montanans, sued over HB 121, arguing that it unconstitutionally discriminated against those groups based on sex, and that it violated their right to privacy by forcing them to disclose personal information about their gender identity.

Attorneys for the state argued that the law was intended to provide protection and privacy for women and girls in these spaces, and that they are also a protected class.

Vannatta wrote in his opinion that the state hadn’t done enough to show HB 121 was “narrowly tailored” to meet a compelling government interest.

“The State does not provide evidence of trans female offenses against women or evidence of offenses being committed in covered entities to support the necessity of immediate implementation of the Act,” he wrote. “Rather, the State’s concerns regarding trans females are conjecture.”

Vannatta also wrote that laws already exist to criminalize the type of violence and harassment the state is seeking to protect women and girls from.

“This ruling reaffirms the truth about bathroom bans: they’re motivated by prejudice, and they don’t protect anyone,” said Robin Turner, a staff attorney for Legal Voice, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs, in a statement. “HB 121 undermines Montana’s strong constitutional protections against government overreach and subjects people to unacceptable privacy violations. Transgender people are vulnerable to violence in restrooms, and they deserve protection instead of persecution.”

The preliminary injunction is set to remain in place until the judge makes a final ruling in the case, but Vannatta’s order could be appealed to the Supreme Court.

This decision comes just days after another Missoula judge struck down a 2023 state law that prohibited gender-affirming procedures for transgender youth.