Segregation in Public Facilities

Via DeCoster, I found this article:

Transgender, gay and feminist groups at the University of Chicago are asking officials to consider creating more gender-neutral bathrooms, saying some people aren't comfortable selecting a gender-specific facility.

"Persons who are not easily legible as male or female often experience various forms of intimidation in these places. If a woman in a women's-only restroom is assumed to be a man, there may be real threats to her comfort and even safety," warns the Coalition for a Queer Safe Campus

PC gone amuck. Kind of funny.

I doubt that in an anarchy there would be any trifurcated bathroom system. Nonetheless, on this issue the transgendered people are right. The state should not discriminate on sex. It should not have separate-but-equal anything - schools, jobs, and yes, even bathrooms. Of course, the fact is that most people like sex discrimination. I do too. But that has nothing to do with equal treatment under the law. It's just a preference. We don't racially discriminate regardless of what the poll numbers on it are.

The right answer to the problem here is simply that the state has no business doing anything where discrimination is necessary. It should not be running universities. A private university can discriminate against transgendered people, and probably should (at least, in terms of economic efficiency it should). But if the state insists on supplying education, it should make bathroom facilities open to everyone. Anything less is unequal protection.

The problem here is not the trangendered activists: they are a symptom. The problem is state ownership of the means of production.