State Treatment of LGBT People in Chile
Those who cherish liberty as the highest socio-political goal sometimes have the wrong reaction to news that affects certain groups in society. For example, consider a case study regarding Chilean social policy that can be used to focus on libertarian values.
Chile is a nominally Catholic country, stoned on an overdose of largely-ignorant Evangelicals and a few stuffy Opus Dei Catholics, saddled by a state that wants to encourage human reproduction in the modern age where Chilean women produce less than two children apiece. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the government tends to uphold more conservative public policy when it comes to family, sexuality, abortion, and marriage.
In a front page article today, Chile's main newspaper, El Mercurio, reported that the country was one of the few (21) "red" countries in the world. It still is nearly impossible to change the birth gender on residents' ID cards. Even if you cannot read Spanish, open the link and look at the map to see just how few countries in the world (around 10%) are highlighted in red. Yet, when one understands Chile's predicament or situation, the result is hardly surprising.
Chileans do not buy the idea that one's gender can change. Despite the government's efforts to cram queer behavior down the throats of the Chilean populace, it has not succeeded. Moreover, it is against public policy to thwart dearly-sought human reproduction. Chile wants more babies just as much as it wants more quality immigrants. More subjects are the life-blood of any sort of feudal arrangement, whether in Chile or elsewhere. Most of the rest of South America's countries caved-in to such modern ideas between 2015 and 2017, but Chile has stood firm, along with Brazil and Paraguay.
The odd thing is that some libertarians get up in arms about the policy, wanting all people to be considered equal before the law. However, for them, this thinking is just a leftover morsel from some former modern liberal ideas that they once had.
Since when do libertarians want state-issued ID cards? Or state-sanctioned marriages for that matter? Our focus should never be in trying to get equal treatment for queer people but rather to make all people freer, including queer ones, by getting the state out of their lives! Eliminating state ID cards is a far more laudable goal for libertarians.
Our enemy is, by-and-large, the state, not individuals—even if we do not agree with the choices they make in life. Sure, there are bad individuals and nefarious gangs of criminals that are also our enemies, but their actions are hardly sanctioned by civilization--even if the state's justice system (especially Chile's) usually refuses to bring them to justice. Moreover, ordinary people do not often run into them, whereas all people must face the vile state meddling in their lives, plundering their goods, their labor and regulating their behavior. If we are victims of anything, it is the state.
Therefore, the last thing we want is for the state to track or categorize us better with national ID cards. Get a grip on the bigger picture and stop caving into whining LGBT activists (most of whom are also statists anyway). If we want to fight for equality, then let's fight to ensure that all people may be freer.
John Cobin, Ph.D.
Escape America Now
¡Estupendo!