This 90-year-old has bared all to his family about his sexuality through a Facebook post.
Kenneth Felts from Colorado in the US says he knew he was gay from the age of 12, but was inspired by the recent Pride month to come out to his family, Daily Mail reports.
It was while he was writing his memoirs during lockdown that he decided to be candid about his sexuality with his daughter, Rebecca Mayes.
“For a long time, the truth was buried deep down in my soul and I adopted a straight persona because I didn’t think I had another choice,” Kenneth said to Good Morning America.
“I would’ve had to contend with all the scorn from society, be labelled a pervert or deviant. But people are much more accepting today and I felt I had to find the courage.”
In a touching Facebook post, Kenneth told his family and friends that all his life he’d pretended to be heterosexual even though he was not.
To keep his sexuality a secret from his Christian family, he’d performed dual identities.
“There’s myself Ken, who’s a straight man, and then my inner self Larry, who is a gay man,” he said.
He disclosed that he’d fallen in love in the 1950s with a man by the name of Philip Jones, who’d since passed on, and regretted not being with him openly.
“After a long day of writing my mind was preoccupied and somehow I said something about how I wished I never left Phillip,” he explained.
Kenneth, who’d previously worked as a counsellor at a rehabilitation centre, and Rebecca’s mother got divorced and he then proceeded to continue looking for Philip for 30 years.
But it was only on Thursday that he found out that his “first and greatest love has passed away”, The Denver Channel reported.
“I’m sorry I waited so long. If I said it when I was still with Phillip, we may have stayed together,” he said.
While Kenneth is unable to change what’s happened in the past, he’s looking forward to his future.
“There’s only a few years I have left or maybe even a few hours for all I know, so I’ll make the most of it while I can,” he said.
“I am out, I am gay, I am free.”
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