A group of 17 transgender Air Force members are suing the Pentagon for ripping away their retirement benefits after they were booted from the military.

A group of transgender servicemembers, who served up to 18 years in the Air Force, are suing the military for depriving them of their retirement benefits after the Trump administration booted all transgender troops from the military's ranks.

In a lawsuit filed on Nov. 10, more than a dozen transgender servicemembers are asking a court to reinstate the pensions they say the Air Force promised them as they were forced out of the military, only to rip them away in the subsequent months.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order earlier this year ordering the Pentagon to oust all transgender troops.

Transgender soldiers who resigned of their own accord would receive "voluntary separation pay," according to Pentagon guidance. Those who didn't could be identified via "medical record reviews" and expelled.

Air Force yanks transgender members' pensions

Amid the purge, the Air Force told transgender troops in May that those being expelled after 15 to 18 years of service could apply for early retirement benefits. All the plaintiffs received their official retirement orders the following month.

Then, on Aug. 4, the Air Force changed its mind.

"After careful consideration, I am disapproving" of all of those airmen's applications for retirement benefits, Brian Scarlett, the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, wrote in a memo.

"The military, the Air Force, is seeing my service as meaningless," said Logan Ireland, 37, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Ireland, who served for 15 years, told USA TODAY that he had lined up his finances and started applying to other jobs when his retirement was suddenly rescinded. While his command team has been supportive, officials have not responded to his requests to speak to higher-ups in the military, he said.

"I want to know why," he said. "Why is my retirement being taken from me?"

The Air Force has said the group of people who lost benefits had an opportunity to apply for voluntary separation pay. The Air Force said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Shannon Minter, the legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and an attorney representing the group, said some plaintiffs could stand to lose millions of dollars. They and their families will also lose military healthcare, Minter added.

Minter said the military only rescinds retirement pay in extremely rare circumstances. He pointed to an Air Force policy that lists "fraud, manifest error, mathematical error, mistake of law, or substantial new evidence" as the only acceptable rationales for revoking pensions.

"Ordinarily, when the military, in this case the Air Force, issues retirement orders, those are sacrosanct," said Minter. "It is unheard of for such an order to be rescinded, much less with no explanation and no justification."

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in allowing the ban on transgender people serving in the military to take effect in May.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Transgender troops who served 15 to 18 years sue Air Force over revoked pensions

Reporting by Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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