A federal judge has struck down a Tennessee law that requires businesses to post a red and yellow notice on any public bathroom that allows transgender people to use the restroom that best matches their gender.

The first-of-its-kind law, signed by the states Republican governor last spring, would have required the signs as part of the states building code. Businesses that refused or failed to display the signs could have faced criminal charges.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger, who issued an injunction against the law last summer, said in her ruling on Tuesday that the signs would not only violate business owners First Amendment rights, requiring them to endorse a position they do not wish to endorse, but that they risk sowing fear and misunderstanding.

It would do a disservice to the First Amendment to judge the Act for anything other than what it is: a brazen attempt to single out trans-inclusive establishments and force them to parrot a message that they reasonably believe would sow fear and misunderstanding about the very transgender Tennesseans whom those establishments are trying to provide with some semblance of a safe and welcoming environment, Trauger said.