(WASHINGTON) — After the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to enforce its ban on transgender service members, Master Sgt. Logan Ireland, who has served in the Air Force for 15 years, was faced with the options of separating from the military voluntarily or being processed for involuntary separation – a prospect that comes with losing half of his separation pay.
When Logan was presented with the option of applying for early retirement at 15 years, he applied and was relieved when the Air Force approved his request and gave him an early retirement date of Dec. 1, 2025.
“It’s kind of like your golden ticket. So I felt solid,” Ireland told ABC News.
But on Monday, Ireland said he received a memo from Brian Scarlett, who is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, indicating that early retirement at 15-18 years for transgender service members would be denied.
“After careful consideration of the individual applications, I am disapproving all Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA) exception to policy requests in Tabs 1 and 2 for members with 15-18 years of service,” the memo said, adding that those denied early retirement would need to be processed for separation instead.
Military service members are eligible for full retirement benefits after they complete 20 years of service. Anything less than that requires an approved exemption. Air Force personnel who had 18 but less than 20 years of service were approved for early retirement because they were close to the 20 years, while several dozen senior Airmen who had between 15 and 18 years of service also sought approval for this early retirement, the Air Force said. Early retirement would allow them to receive part of their pension.
The memo, which was reviewed by ABC News, includes a “script” for commanders to communicate with applicants regarding TERA denial and separation, and explains that the Department of the Air Force (DAF) “prematurely notified some DAF members that their TERA applications under the gender dysphoria provision had been approved.”
The Air Force said in a statement to ABC News, “Approximately a dozen service members between 15 and 18 years of service were prematurely notified that their TERA applications under the gender dysphoria provision had been approved, but higher level review was required under the DoD gender dysphoria policy for those members.”
Ireland, who has served multiple overseas tours to countries like Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea, said that the reversal was a “betrayal.”
“The first feeling I felt was betrayal. I’ve given my life to the service,” he said.
“I was promised this. I had my retirement orders in hand,” he added. “I’ve been starting to process what life looks like outside of uniform, and now we don’t know what that looks like.”
According to the Scarlett memo, transgender service members who choose to voluntarily separate will receive separation pay at twice the rate of those who choose involuntary separation.
The memo from Scarlett also says that while service members like Ireland would not be eligible for early retirement, they will still be “entitled to an honorable discharge characterization, separation benefits and transition assistance.”
Air Force Cmdr. Emily Shilling, who is the president of Sparta Pride — an organization advocating for about 2,400 transgender people in the military and those who hope to join — criticized the move in a phone interview with ABC News on Thursday, saying that the Air Force “reneged on their promise.”
Shilling said that some applications for early retirement had already been approved, but now the lives of those service members who have dedicated close to two decades of service to their country have been upended again.
Shilling, who will be eligible for retirement at 20 years in September, previously told ABC News that she chose to self-identify as transgender and begin the process of voluntarily separating from the military, but said that she made the decision “under duress.”
“I was coerced into it because we knew that the voluntary separation would give me an honorable discharge with some portion of my retirement, and I’d be able to keep all of my benefits,” Shilling said. ABC News reached out to the Air Force but a request for comment was not returned.
The Department of Defense offered transgender service members the opportunity to voluntarily separate before they were forced out through involuntary separations. Incentives were offered for voluntary separations that amounted to double the benefits that they might have received if they were involuntarily separated.
Shilling and Ireland both decided to fight the ban in federal court, each becoming lead plaintiffs in separate federal lawsuits – Shilling vs. Trump and Ireland vs. Hegseth. A third lawsuit, Talbott vs. Trump, also challenges the ban, which was announced in a Jan. 27 executive order by President Donald Trump, who directed the Defense Department to revise the policy allowing transgender troops to openly serve.
“Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” the Trump order said, arguing that receiving gender-affirming medical care is one of the conditions that is physically and mentally “incompatible with active duty.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed this sentiment in a Feb. 7 memo, saying that “efforts to split our troops along lines of identity weaken our Force and make us vulnerable.”
Professor Nathaniel Frank, a cultural historian and researcher at Cornell University who studies the history of LGBTQ+ people in the military, told ABC News that decades of research dispute the administration’s arguments that transgender individuals are not fit to serve.
“There’s never been any evidence found that gay or transgender service members present any problems to unit cohesion or readiness, and that the evidence finds the opposite, that the prohibitions against trans people are what harm readiness and cohesion because they undermine trust,” Frank said.
Despite the legal challenges, the Supreme Court ruled in May that the administration can enforce the ban as the lawsuits move forward.
In response to the letter denying his early retirement, Ireland signed a memo on Wednesday indicating that he understands that his TERA exception to policy application was denied.
The memo, which was reviewed by ABC News, included a box in which Ireland was asked to indicate whether he does or does not intend to submit a voluntary separation request.
Ireland checked the box that says, “I do not,” electing involuntary separation instead.
“One thing the military failed to teach me was how to retreat,” Ireland told ABC News. “I’m not going down without a fight.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
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