Fences Dedicated to my college friend, Ron Ingrasin Scot Walker   © Copyright July 10, 2026 by Scot Walker

Photo byAlexander Grey at Pexels.

(see: Christmas under the Press with Ramar of the Jungle).

It began innocently enough in 1954 at age ten, when my 5^th grade teacher, Mrs. Leicht, had us rearrange our desks so instead of facing her, we faced each other in sets of two. She paired me with Bobby Jordan, whom I found very interesting as my boy reproductive system shifted from neutral into first gear. One day we each slipped off our shoes and one by one slid our feet up the other boy’s pant legs and GOD what happened to my body for that first time was heaven. However, I realized that if we were caught, we’d be sent to the principal, Mr. Butcher, who was a FIRM believer in the paddle. He’d already used it on my cousin Butch and several other boys, but that paddle and the butcher and the baker and the candlestick maker were far from Bobby and my joyous exploration as our feet explored each other’s legs. That was all we did—just touched our socked feet against the other boy’s leg—but it was my first mental organism! And from that moment I realized how different I was and I also realized that if I was caught it would be the end of me, so I began to create my own world by “erecting” a fence around the “real me” so I could live in a world of my own. In the process, I learned to delve into the souls and minds and spirits of everyone around me until I “knew” who they were and how I could live a lie and hide from them to protect myself from that other world where they would pray for me to be cured or send me to the “Bad Boy’s Home” or toss me to the gypsies because I was the ONLY different boy in the entire universe.

Yet, even though Bobby and I played the foot game a few times, that was all we knew how to do and I assumed he walked down a different road, but from that moment on, I knew I had to pretend to be a “real boy” a boy who liked girls, loved hitting balls with long bats, or fondle big balls a running at break-neck speed down a hard long court to toss them into overhanging baskets (nothing gay there, right?) and ultimately get married and turn some innocent woman into my shield and ruin her life to protect my own. My quandary was to figure out how I could exist in that other world and avoid marriage altogether.

Ultimately, I built fences and then walls, thicker and taller than that Great Wall in China, as I hid my passion, my lust, my love, and my very soul from everyone around me.

Soon, I joined a fundamentalist Christian church where everything anyone did or felt or thought was a sin so we prayed a lot and felt guilty all the time and I had to learn to exist in both worlds as my fences and walls became both my prison and my refuge. The only good news I learned as a fundamentalist Christian was that boys must never have sex with girls before marriage, boys must pray and dedicate and rededicate our lives to Christ or we’d be doomed to hell—yet even though my body was different and my mind and spirt and soul were being devasted by that religion, I never thought about those “other boys”—those so-called normal boys for whom that must have been an unbearable sacrifice and the agony they must have endured on those endless nights when they prayed to Jesus on their knees to be abstinent at the same time I was on my knees praying to be normal so I, too, could be abstinent. All I was worried about was me—my safety—my life—and being exposed as a homosexual, a homo, a Godless queer condemned to an eternity in the fires of hell, yet at the same time, I am thankful to this cult of religious zealots because they offered me one more wall to protect my inner self—my soul, if you will, safely sequestered in the arms of their straight Jesus, who scripturally speaking, never married or had children or had sex with a woman. Ah. . . religion thy very name is confusion!

At the age of twelve in 7^th grade, I joined Teens for Christ and became a Christian magician. The following year I joined Youth for Christ where I became a performer by memorizing stories and reciting them (to this day I am still confused how a 12-year-old could be in a “teens” group and then join “youth group” when he was no longer a youth but this, I imagine, is the mass confusion of religion.

At about that time I joined my church’s choir, and ultimately went to a fundamentalist born-again Christian College—totally sequestering myself even more from “the world” but luckily, I found a few others like me—hiding in the recesses, digging themselves into the muddy trenches trying not to be stepped on, or crushed, or spit on and I discovered that together we could survive so I established an underground fraternity: “The Q-A” and none of those Christians ever delved into the significance of those initials of our Queers Anonymous fraternity, as I built steel fences with wrought iron gates, surrounding them with thicker walls to encompass Scot’s castle along with a twenty-foot wide moat ladened with insatiable man eating crocodiles, knowing that neither they nor the deathly cannonballs atop my walls nor this Fundamental Christianity would ultimately destroy me if my secret became known, I kept my secret deep inside my soul, knowing that just one betrayal would be my doom, one slip of a tongue, one furtive sexual glance would mean expulsion—not just from those in my Christian college but from all of society, since there was no hope for me to ever be part of their “Safe” world, always hiding, hiding, hiding, knowing my fear would be twenty-four seven, never ending, exuding nothing but terror and fear and that I must continue to hide and be on guard and basically trust no one—no friend, no school mate, no relative—because I must always stay and hide who I really was.

And then Stonewall happened! I was 25, teaching public school, dating women, living the lie, knowing just one mistake would end my career and the loss of my family, my house and my very soul, so I stayed in hiding, fearing what would happen if my walls crumbled, but today at 82, I see Hope Herself, who so meekly escaped from Pandora’s box, crashing down my castle walls and my fences, and I am happy they protected me for seven decades but know now that I can sing: I AM WHAT I AM knowing those five words just tore down all my walls, all my fences, and tore open all my closets so I can stand tall—tall and proud hoping no one ever has to go through my hell and that all my LGBQ+ friends can be strong and fearless because their world is safer—and they don’t have to hide behind walls or fences or be trapped by questions like my good friend, Ron Ingrassin asked me: “Why did you decide to become gay?” My reply was: “What made you decide to become straight?”

Last week when I chatted with Ron, he said that thinking about that question made him realize the answer: WE ARE WHAT WE ARE.

Thank you for seeing the light!