90-Year-Old Colorado Man Who Came Out as Gay Opens Up About His Journey

Colorado resident, Kenneth Felts, 90, is finally “free” after coming out as gay and penning a new memoir. 

The Navy veteran opened up during a recent interview on Today, where he shared that he’d been keeping his sexuality secret most of his life but when the pandemic hit, which prompted him to sit down and write a memoir, he realized that his story would be incomplete if he didn’t come out. 

“I had been keeping this secret most of my life, and I had planned to take it to the grave,” he said. “In 1942, when I was 12, I realized I was gay. [But] If you came out, it really would cost you — your family, your job, all of your relationships. You would immediately be called a pervert.”

Kenneth fell in love with a man, Phillip, after he joined the Navy. The relationship lasted two years, but ended after Kenneth struggled to accept himself amidst his religious beliefs. 

“It was a void in my life that had suddenly been filled by another person who, apparently, had some of the same needs,” he said. “And we just melted into each other.”

After his relationship with Phillip, Kenneth married a woman and had a daughter named Rebecca, who later came out to him as a lesbian in 1995. He and his wife eventually divorced. 

“One day I was talking to Rebecca and I just happened to mention, I wish I had never left Philip,” he told Today. Their conversation ultimately inspired him to come out not only to his daughter, but to the world in a June post:

What a story!  Watch his interview HERE.

One of the loving and wonderful people who has been reading my messages on my coming out and search for Phillip…

Posted by Kenneth Felts on Thursday, June 25, 2020