David’s father was an academic, so the family moved often. Whether in California or Nova Scotia, though, sports provided a great way to make friends. David was “pudgy and klutzy” as a child, but in high school he discovered football and wrestling.
Playing linebacker was fun, but grappling really drew him in. He worked out, lifted weights and molded his body to a masculine ideal. In 1979, at Halifax’s Dalhousie University, he became Canada’s Maritime Provinces 158-pound champ.
He married, had a teenage son and embarked on a successful, lucrative career in information technology.
But even those accomplishments did not fully satisfy David. He’d always been masculine – never effeminate or girly – yet he never felt he fit in. In 1999, he came out to his mother as transgender. She was stunned. The realization was almost as stunning for David. “My sense of myself as an athlete had been the biggest part of my identity for years,” he – now Donna Rose – says. “There had been two seasons in my life: wrestling, and getting ready for wrestling.” It was hard to let that go.
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