WASHINGTON– The Trump administration has violated a court order by transferring several incarcerated transgender women to a segregated prison unit, a lawyer for the inmates argued Wednesday as he urged a federal judge to enforce the order.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., did not rule from the bench on the inmates’ request to return them to the general population in women’s prisons and block further transfers to the segregated unit. But the judge expressed concern that the transfers violate a preliminary injunction he issued last month.

“You are violating my order, aren’t you?” Lamberth asked Justice Department attorney Jared Littman.

“No, your honor,” Littman said. “According to the words of your order, there was no violation.”

Lamberth, however, said it appears the government has violated its previous order “on its face” by segregating the plaintiffs and depriving them of “all of their privileges” since they were housed in women’s facilities.

Ten transgender women are currently segregated in the same unit at a prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Eight of them are plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging an executive order President Donald Trump signed last year, ordering the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house inmates based on their biological sex and stop gender-affirming care.

Lamberth, who was nominated for the position by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled June 7 that officials must house the lawsuit’s plaintiffs in women’s prisons or women’s halfway houses. The judge barred corrections officials from enforcing part of Trump’s executive order.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Alexander Shalom, argued that housing the plaintiffs in a segregated unit violates their constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

“This is a covert attempt to implement the executive order,” Shalom told the judge. “The conditions are in no way comparable to those in a women’s center.”

Shalom said the transfers have exacerbated the plaintiffs’ gender dysphoria, which is the distress a person feels because their assigned gender and gender identity do not match. The medical condition has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.

“The defendants minimize this harm, but they cannot deny that it is occurring,” he said.

Government lawyers argue that the transfers do not violate the court order because the judge did not require the plaintiffs to be housed alongside cisgender female inmates or share common spaces with them. They also say it is premature for plaintiffs to challenge transfers in court before using the prison system’s administrative complaint process.

“Plaintiffs cannot go directly to court and voice their complaints,” Littman said.