A few months ago I wrote about local YMCAs changing their locker room policies to be more inclusive to transgendered individuals (to the exclusion of normal gendered individuals — double digression — shouldn’t the term “non-crazy” suffice here?), and the aftermath was great both locally and in the comments on Ricochet. One of the strongest arguments made in favor of the change (or at least in favor of not getting worked up over it) was that the Y is a private organization which individuals are free to patronize or simply ignore as their consciences dictate. It wasn’t as if this was being mandated by the government. That is, naturally, no longer the case in the People’s Republic State of Washington.

The day after Christmas, Washington state’s Human Rights Commission gave us all a gift of bathroom and locker room desegregation. It is now illegal for business owners like the YMCA or their competition at another gyms to “limit sex-specific facilities such as bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms to persons with the anatomical parts of one sex.” So, the argument that the Y (and everyone else) can do what they think right is no longer valid.