Seventeen transgender members of the Air Force who were discharged under the Trump administration’s transgender ban filed a lawsuit this week against the federal government for allegedly revoking their pensions and other benefits after their forced early retirement.
The lawsuit, dated November 10, involves members who served between 15 and 18 years in the Air Force, and asks for benefits they claim had been previously offered to them — but then were then told in August that decision had been reversed.
Glad Law, one of the advocacy groups that helped bring the lawsuit, writes:
These service members will loose [sic] $1–2 million in lifetime benefits, jeopardizing their families’ economic security. The action also strips the Airmen and their families of access to TRICARE, the military health insurance program, which would have provided access to civilian health care providers beyond VA facilities.
Michael Haley, a staff attorney with the group, told the Associated Press that the revocation of the early retirement benefits was part of “the general cruelty in attacking transgender people.”
“These are folks who are going to move on with their lives, have received the OK to do so, and then have that taken away from them once again,” Haley added.
Logan Ireland, a master sergeant in the Air Force with 15 years of service that includes a deployment to Afghanistan, told AP that he became a plaintiff in the suit after having his early retirement denied.
“The military taught me to lead and fight, not retreat,” he said. “Stripping away my retirement sends the message that those values only apply on the battlefield, not when a service member needs them most.”
The lawsuit is one of several legal challenges to the Trump administration’s policies that have sought to remove transgender troops from the military and ban transgender individuals from enlisting in an effort to make the military more lethal.
As Breitbart News reported, the Pentagon has reported that 4,240 troops have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the term the military is using to signify being transgender.
In May, plaintiffs seeking immediate relief from the ban petitioned the Supreme Court. However, a majority of the justices allowed it to remain in place while the legal challenges proceeded in the lower courts.
The Pentagon did not respond to the Air Force lawsuit but has a longstanding policy of not commenting on ongoing litigation, AP reported.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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