The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Friday upheld a lower court’s injunction that prohibits Fort Collins from enforcing a nudity ban that criminalizes the act of women going topless in public.

In a 2-1 decision, Judges Mary Beck Briscoe and Gregory Phillips sided with plaintiff Free The Nipple-Fort Collins and ordered the case returned to the U.S. District Court in Denver for further consideration.

Fort Collins had appealed the district court’s decision granting a preliminary junction against the city from enforcing its public nudity ban, finding in favor of individual plaintiffs Brittiany Hoagland and Samantha Six, the decision says.

In 2017, the Fort Collins City Council passed an ordinance that imposes no restrictions on male toplessness but prohibits women from baring their breasts below the areola.

Free the Nipple-Fort Collins had sued the city in federal court, claiming the ordinance violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The district court agreed.

On Friday, the appeals court sided with the lower court, concluding that Fort Collins’ ordinance is “likely unconstitutional.”

“Here, absent the preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs, and all women in Fort Collins, risk criminal sanctions for making a choice — to appear topless in public — that men may make scot-free,” the appeals judges wrote.

Fort Collins had argued that female toplessness could disrupt public order, leading to distracted driving and endangered children.

But the appeals judges determined that Fort Collins could abate sidewalk confrontations by increasing the penalties for engaging in offensive conduct. To reduce distracted driving, the city could also target billboards designed to draw drivers’ eyes from the road, the ruling says.

“We’re left, as the district court was, to suspect that the city’s professed interest in protecting children derives not from any morphological differences between men’s and women’s breasts but from negative stereotypes depicting women’s breasts, but not men’s breasts, as sex objects,” the ruling says.

David Lane, an attorney for Free the Nipple-Fort Collins, said that because the 10th Circuit ruling directly contradicts a 2018 ruling in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Fort Collins may appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, since the high court often hears cases in which circuit decisions contradict each other.

City leaders are still sorting out the implications of the court’s decision and are not prepared to comment, said Emily Wilmsen, Fort Collins spokeswoman. She said the City Council will discuss the ruling at its next meeting.

“Plaintiffs believe that this is a HUGE victory for women’s rights and is cause for great celebration,” Lane wrote in a news release.