![\"Leah](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Leah-Eleazer-300x300.png\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nThis is a confusing article<\/a>. Hondo sent it to me early this morning and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it on just one cup of coffee. It wasn’t until Country Singer sent it to me this afternoon that I could figure it out. When you’re reading the story, the fellow above is really Leah Eleazer who now goes by the name of Jacob Eleazer, but the Army still calls her Leah and she’s a Captain in the Kentucky National Guard’s 238th Regimental Training Institute. No, she’s not in the Army, like the article says. In order to understand the article, you have to remember that when they write “Jacob Eleazer”, “him”, “his” or “he” they’re talking about this Leah Eleazer person.<\/p>\n Jacob Eleazer, a 28-year-old Army drill instructor, learned he was up for promotion this December. For seven years, he\u2019d been an exemplary soldier, rising to the rank of first lieutenant, and now on his way to captain. But there was a problem. Within the confines of his military training center, in western Kentucky, Eleazer still went by his birth name, which was female.<\/p>\n Outside his Army base, Eleazer lived as a man, one of 15,450 military personnel who consider themselves transgender but don\u2019t dare come out to their fellow soldiers and risk jeopardizing their careers.<\/p>\n \u201cMy colleagues just assumed I was a really butch lesbian,\u201d says Eleazer, who has the broad shoulders, close-cropped hair and a jutting chin one would expect of a drill instructor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah, that’s her or him in the photo. The article is basically about her struggle to be a man, of sorts, you’ll be happy to know that when she told her commander about her impending “transition” to a man, her commander was totally fine with it.<\/p>\n For decades, transgender men and women have been barred from serving in the military. The rule is rooted in an archaic theory that equated being transgender with having a mental disorder. Four years after Congress repealed the \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d law, activists have been agitating for change, and point to other nations, like Israel and England, which allow transgender military personnel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n