The figure of Hans-Hermann Hoppe has the peculiarity of leaving no room for misleading interpretations. He has the advantage of not allowing distortion and false interpretations by the left “libertarians”. Anyone who can define himself as a lover of the natural order, or – as some have suggested – ordonaturalist, knows that it is impossible for the so-called left “libertarians” to distort Hoppe’s thinking, as is frequently done with Murray N. Rothbard and Ludwig Von Mises. For this reason, a slice of those who find themselves within the so-called “liberty movement” constantly try to isolate and marginalize Hoppean thinking as extraneous to the libertarian community. An attempt to redefine reality to break up the libertarian movement from its traditional values.
The German economist and philosopher Hans-Herman Hoppe, in outlining perspectives and action plans to achieve the goals of libertarianism, leaves no room for misunderstandings. Hoppe poses with surgical clarity an interpretation of how much moral decline is alien to the libertarian roots.
“In the U.S.; less than a century of full-blown democracy has resulted in steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime.”, wrote Hoppe in the famous essay Democracy: the god that failed [1].
Hoppe, in the same essay, continues by stating “Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They-the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism-will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.” [2]. The words of the German economist seem to leave no room for alternative interpretations.
This article does not want to be just a consideration on how the left pushes governments to impose themselves on the individual through the degeneration of legal positivism, but also offers insights on how the natural order can give clear and precise answers, free of contradictions and of absurd inferences on issues that appear as new.
The goal of this brief analysis is to try to offer some ideas for a narration of the reality of the transgender phenomenon from a Hoppean point of view and culturally close to the history and roots of the old continent.
To carry out this analysis, it is necessary to make a picture of the current reality that surrounds us today.
In the last year, according to a poll released by Gallup poll, in the United States the number of adults who identify as “LGBT” has risen to 5.6% [3]. According to Gallup pool, this is an upward trend compared to previous years. In 2012 the percentage was 3.5%, and in the previous poll to the current one (2017) the number of adults identified as “LGBT” was 4.5%[4]. The trend is even more pronounced among young people. According to the latest pool released by the Gallup pool, people who identify themselves as “transgender” in the United States are 0.6%. They would be just under 2 million people.
This is also connected with the emergence of personalities who identify themselves as “transgender”, even outside the path of cultural Marxism and the legacy of the radical left. An example from recent months is Caitlyn Jenner, a former US Olympic champion, recently running to be governor of California as a Republican [5].
Furthermore, if on the one hand technological and scientific progress would allow more and more people defined as “LGBT” to have children and thus lower their time preference, and consequently be more relevant for the purposes of long-term economic growth that leads to the increase of aggregate well-being, the fact that a medicalized transgender person identified as a woman may be the biological father of a child at the same time, or that a medicalized transgender person identified as a man may become pregnant, would create a climate of social alarm.
Today, legal sex change is permitted in most countries of the Western world [6]. In some jurisdictions (only a small number of countries) to determine the legal change of sex is the psychological condition of the individual, or the so-called “self-identification”, without providing for medicalization processes. In other countries, both a psychological condition and a certificate of estrogen treatment are required. Even countries known to have a more conservative approach allow a person to legally change sex, in the latter it is essential to certify a psychological, hormonal but also anatomical condition. In Texas as in Russia it is possible to legally change sex after undergoing a sex reassignment surgery, and in many cases sterilization is explicitly required [7]. It is clear that, in any case, the chromosomal condition can never be changed. It is obvious that there is no technology that is capable of changing genetics. A subject with XY sex chromosomes will continue to be XY even after medical intervention, and the same is true for XX subjects. Then there are a minority of Western countries that do not provide for the legal change of sex in their legal system. Most of the countries in the world that prohibit legal sex change are located on the African continent [6].
The fact that so many Western countries allow the possibility of legally changing sex is not so surprising when we think of the ancient pagan origins of the old continent. The ancient pagan origins, despite belonging to a society that no longer exists, have remained etched in the history and culture of the countries of the old European continent. In the history of the old continent, the figures of the hermaphrodite and the transsexual have been deeply rooted in Hellenic pagan mythology [8], subsequently adopted by the ancient Romans who dominated much of the European continent and beyond, for many centuries [9]. Just think of the well-known Greek mythological tale of the soothsayer Tiresias who tells of a transsexual experience of sex change [10], narrated by the Roman poet Ovid in The Metamorphoses [11].
We know that even city-states like Sparta, which is considered one of the most conservative and morally rigid societies ever, defined by some as a model of perfect balance between institutions and political stability [12], were part of the mythological culture of the Hellenic pagan world. In Sparta, among other things, transvestism was usually manifested as a ritual practice [13].
The “LGBT” and in particular “transgender” issue in the contemporary era poses questions to the libertarian movement in its entirety. The answers that emerge are many, sometimes opposed, often conflicting.
While “LGBT” propaganda is a constructivist ideology like many others, disconnected from traditional values, which today bases its roots mainly on empirical evidence and not on the praxeological path of the investigation [14]. In fact, there is no a priori theory that allows us to explain the transgender issue from a point of view opposite to that which arises from the Marxist substrate. Someone argues, perhaps wrongly, that it can never exist. To date we know that the narrative as proposed by most of the “LGBT” movements and associations is an ideology that someone may need to accept and make their own or reject, as well as accept or reject the idea that the earth is flat.
Hoppe’s thought could be a great deterrent to the current mental confusion situation.
All libertarians know that the state is an inherently violent corporation that arbitrarily uses coercion against the individual and his property. It is difficult to deny that the most relevant discrimination against people always comes from the laws of the government. At the same time, governments do not allow people who wish to be able to organize themselves in a community with their own jurisdiction instead of begging the state for the realization of legal positivism to endorse their goals, rather than claiming the natural right to be free from government coercion. This great mistake has led to the current approach that institutions have to address an issue that would have had no way of existing except in the positive dimension of jurisprudence: the absurd expansion of egalitarian law in all areas of the personal life of private citizens and businesses.
The paradox is that governments want to impose on individuals the principle of non-discrimination – when discrimination is an essential prerogative of private law and freedom of enterprise – while they have always exercised discriminatory prerogatives through positivist regulations and laws. This is just one of the many nonsense that characterizes modern democratic states. All libertarians know that anti-discrimination laws with erga omnes enforceability are in fact unable to enter the infinity of microeconomic relationships established between economic agents [15].
The “LGBT” movements have thus followed the path of lobbying in politics. Influence parties to pass laws with erga omnes enforceability. Leading to the consequence of the degenerate expansion of positive law.
Those who define themselves as libertarians, as well as ordonaturalists, are aware that an invasive judicial system towards the private sphere of the individual is not only useless, but also illegitimate and harmful. The perception of discrimination is entirely subjective. If those who feel discriminated against were allowed to exercise the natural right of self-determination, the creation of their own jurisdiction in a specific area subject to the exercise of defined property rights, the government’s legislative and coercive monopoly would have ceased to exist. A context of multiplicity of different jurisdictions (or communities) competing with each other would have undermined the democratic principle of majority dictatorship that occurs through voting for political parties, but an alternative form of voting would have emerged, that of voting with the feet. That is, the vote expressed through physical movement from one jurisdiction to another according to one’s individual preferences and needs [16]. Allowing those who perceive themselves as discriminated against to separate themselves from society, to physically remove themselves from it in order to voluntarily join a different jurisdiction as well as create a community of owners who base their principles on shared values could represent a solution to the invasiveness of the hyper-regulation imposed by the leviathan superstate [17].
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[1] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (2001). Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order (Perspectives on Democratic Practice) (1st ed., p. xiii). Routledge.
[2] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (2001). Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order (Perspectives on Democratic Practice) (1st ed., p. 218). Routledge.
[3] Jones, J. M. (2021, February 24). LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% in Latest U.S. Estimate. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx
[4] Newport, F. (2018, May 22). In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%. Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx
[5] Young, J. (2021, April 23). Caitlyn Jenner running for governor of California is ‘not a big surprise’ to Kardashians: report. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/caitlyn-jenner-running-california-governor-surprise-kardashians-report
[6] Ilga.org. (2019). Trans legal mapping report. Recognition before the law https://ilga.org/downloads/ILGA_World_Trans_Legal_Mapping_Report_2019_EN.pdf
[7] H., M. (2017, September 1). Why transgender people are being sterilised in some European countries. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2017/09/01/why-transgender-people-are-being-sterilised-in-some-european-countries
[8] Chiaiese, A., & Montepaone, C. (2008–2011). Nei panni dell’altro. Studi sul travestimento «intersessuale» in Grecia antica (Research Doctorate in Gender Studies-XXIV cycle). UNIVERSITY OF NAPLES “Federico II”, Department of Theories and Methods of Human and Social Sciences (TEOMESUS), Doctoral School in Psychological, Pedagogical and Linguistic Sciences. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11918804.pdf
[9] Wasson, D. L. (2018, May 8). Roman Mythology. World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman_Mythology/
[10] Capobianco, L., & Sacco Messineo, M. (2011–2013). Hermaphrodito di Alberto Savinio tra modernità e tradizione del mito (PhD in Italian Studies. Literary text: forms and history). (pp.153-155). University of Palermo. Faculty of Literature and Philosophy. Department of Humanities. https://iris.unipa.it/retrieve/handle/10447/91027/99044/document.pdf
[11] Ovid. Metamorphoses III.
https://www.miti3000.it/mito/biblio/ovidio/metamorfosi/terzo.htm
[12] La Bua, I. (2017, December 26). IL MITO DI SPARTA NELLA TRADIZIONE OCCIDENTALE | Museo Alessandro Roccavilla. Museo Alessandro Roccavilla. http://www.museoalessandroroccavilla.it/2017/12/26/il-mito-di-sparta-nella-tradizione-occidentale/
[13] Chiaiese, A., & Montepaone, C. (2008–2011). Nei panni dell’altro. Studi sul travestimento «intersessuale» in Grecia antica (Research Doctorate in Gender Studies-XXIV cycle). (p. 56) UNIVERSITY OF NAPLES “Federico II”, Department of Theories and Methods of Human and Social Sciences (TEOMESUS), Doctoral School in Psychological, Pedagogical and Linguistic Sciences. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11918804.pdf
[14] Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (2001). Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order (Perspectives on Democratic Practice) (1st ed., pp. xv-xviii ). Routledge.
For clarification on a priori theory and praxeology.
[15] Block, W., & Rockwell, L. H., Jr. (2010). The Case for Discrimination (1st ed.). Ludwig von Mises Institute.
[16] Tiebout, C. (1956)
[17] To learn more see The Leviathan Model. Brenna, G. & Buchanan, J. (1980). Leviathan theory sees individual bureaucrats and the larger government as one monopolist that simply tries to maximize the size of the public sector. This view would help explain rules that explicitly tie the government’s hands in terms of taxes and spending. http://web.uvic.ca/~menginee/mypapers/leviathan.pdf.
Abizadeh, S., & Cyrenne, P. (1997). On Distinguishing between Leviathan and Public Interest Governments in a Federal State. Public Choice, 92(3/4), 281-299. Retrieved June 28, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30024263
