The Trump administration must accept transgender recruits into the military by Jan. 1, a federal judge ruled Monday.

The decision prevents a ban on enlisting new transgender troops that the administration had sought to implement after an earlier injunction against the president’s order. 

“The court will not stay its preliminary injunction pending defendants’ appeal,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote Monday.

“In sum, having carefully considered all of the evidence before it, the court is not persuaded that defendants will be irreparably injured by allowing the accession of transgender individuals into the military beginning on January 1, 2018.”