David Cameron Strachan is intersex, nonbinary, and at 6 feet, 10 inches, very tall. But there’s a fuller story connected to these descriptors.
To share that story, Strachan, who lives in San Francisco, paired with Davi Barker for “Memoir of a Reluctant Giant” (Norton Press, 262 pages, $35 paperback, Feb. 14, 2025). They’ll read from and discuss it on June 28 at the San Francisco Public Library’s Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial branch.
“About three years ago, I was talking to Davi and I said, ‘Well, I have all of this information. I just don’t know how to put it into a book form,” says Strachan.
Barker, a published writer and Strachan’s godchild, was more than happy to help with the project.
“In most articles that have been written about David, you get the whole point of the article up front. To change it into a narrative, it was much more like I needed to bury the lede all the time,” says Barker.
“In the book, you find out things along the way instead of at the beginning. It was like, ’No, I want the reader to learn this at the point in the narrative that David learned this,’ and so it’s a little more of a roller coaster in that way,” Barker adds.
A central narrative in “Reluctant Giant” is Strachan’s longtime relationship with Peter Tannen, which also is pictured on the cover: Tannen, who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, is illustrated as a turtle clasping a rose while Strachan is depicted as a giraffe.
“David and Peter have had this turtle-and-giraffe motif throughout their relationship. It tracks back to their first date, when Peter gave David a card [featuring the animals]. It’s this marriage of opposites,” says Barker, who designed the cover.
“There’s a bit of a height difference,” quips Strachan.
The book also describes Strachan’s LGBTQIA+ activism, including being a founding member of the San Francisco Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force (2002) and serving on boards of the Intersex Society of North America and InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, which will receive partial proceeds from the book’s sales.
They also were one of the first Californians to be legally recognized as nonbinary.
Strachan’s childhood, family and significant events, including introducing Barker’s parents to one another and being present for Barker’s birth in 1981, also are covered.
“It felt like I was writing my own origin story a little bit,” notes Barker.
The book details mental and physical challenges Strachan faced, including the diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome at age 29; learning of its intersex variation 18 years later; and testing positive for HIV in the 1980s.
At its foundation, the memoir is a story of a resilient person’s journey of self-acceptance, including travels abroad.
Strachan says, “Every time I read the book, I go, ‘Really? Is this my life? Did I really live in Tripoli, Libya when I was 19? Did I really teach school in Chiang Mai, Thailand when I was 23?’”
They turn 78 next month, and, while there have been hardships along the way, they’re glad how things have turned out.
“I didn’t think I’d live to be 50, and here I am, 28 years later. So I think I was created for this moment, to tell this story,” they say.
David Strachan and Davi Barker appear at 2 p.m. June 28 at the San Franicsoc Public Library Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court, San Francisco; visit sfpl.org/events/.
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