The government of the United States of America has thrown transgender women incarcerated in the US prison system into men’s facilities.

This is in compliance with US President Donald Trump’s executive order.

It also goes against multiple court rulings blocking the policy, according to civil rights lawyers and accounts from behind bars.

Recall that the President’s “gender ideology” order said the attorney general “shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.”

It further stated that no federal funds go to gender-affirming treatment or procedures for people in custody.

The executive order was quickly challenged in court.

In three lawsuits filed on behalf of trans women housed in women’s prisons, federal judges have ruled that the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cannot withhold their medical treatment and was barred from moving them to men’s facilities.

One judge said the plaintiffs had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow”.

Lawyers fighting Trump’s directive say the court rulings prevented the transfers of 17 trans women who are plaintiffs in the cases, but others not included in the litigation are now facing placements in men’s facilities.

“I’m just continuing to be punished for existing,” said Whitney, a 31-year-old trans woman who was transferred from a women’s facility to a men’s prison this week. The BOP changed her records from “female” to “male”, records show.

In messages before her transfer, she said she felt like a “pawn in others’ political games”.

Kara Janssen, an attorney representing trans women in litigation, said she learned of another trans woman not included in the lawsuits who was recently transferred to a facility that houses men, and also had the gender marker in her records changed.

Janssen also learned of a trans woman newly entering the BOP system who had gender-affirming surgeries before her incarceration, but was placed in a men’s facility, the Guardian UK reports.