There has been a lot of talk lately about abandoning the Tot Finder sticker program, and I understand the arguments.
First of all, if you put the Tot Finder sticker (of me) on your child’s window, and he or she [I'm assuming here that if you have a transgendered child, your child will come to identify with either he or she because the English language--not to mention Western culture as a whole--does not accommodate the vast continuum of biology with regards to gender] moves rooms without relocating the sticker, then it could confuse the firefighter–even leading him or her or transgendered firefighter to a vacant room.
Second, a Tot Finder sticker is (or can be) something of a bullseye for sexual predators. Perhaps this was a bit short-sighted on the part of the Tot Finder program.
I understand these arguments, but they should be weighed against all the children easily saved by firefighters who quickly identified my cartoon portrait on the child’s window.
We’ll never know this number for sure, but I imagine it is somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. And who knows how many young lives have been saved in India and Uruguay and Niger.
In short, we must keep the Tot Finder program in place, putting stickers of me as a transgendered child on every window where children across the gender spectrum sleep and dream and struggle to find mentors and role models who live outside or in between the he/she dichotomy.
