TEL AVIV – Liam Rubin was drafted into the Israeli army as a female before undergoing a sex change with the full support of the IDF and her battalion, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“During my military service, I came to learn a great deal about myself and the extent to which I was in denial about who I really am,” Liam Rubin, who was known as Linoy when she first enlisted, wrote in a Facebook post. “That was when I came out of the closet as a transgender and began a process of changing my sex.”
“That means taking hormones and visiting many doctors,” Rubin wrote. “The amazing part is that the army allowed me to do all of that and remain in my battalion.”
Rubin said that her change was accepted by comrades and commanders in the Caracal co-ed combat battalion.
Rubin writes that initially she was not permitted by the army’s Medical Corps to undergo a procedure to remove her breasts. “The words ‘sex change’ scared the higher ups,” Rubin wrote.
“I did not give up! I filed a complaint against the Medical Corps. A month later, I received a phone call from the army’s soldier complaints representative, who said to me: ‘Good news, your complaint has been accepted, and the Medical Corps will change its policy as it relates to individual transgender operations.’”
The Post reported that the army subsidized Rubin’s sex change operation.
“I am a proud transgender and an even prouder combat soldier serving in the IDF, and I will continue to fight in order to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by our community,” Rubin wrote.
Commenting that there are more than 60 transgender soldiers in the IDF, Rubin said “this number is only going to go up.”