Karen Solt
Writing Memoir Is Its Own Coming Out Journey
August 7, 2025
4 PM PDT | 5 PM MDT | 6 PM CDT | 7 PM EDT
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I was 18 years old and working at a gas station in my hometown in Northern Arizona when I was tricked by a sneaky recruiter into joining the U.S. Navy. A misfit teenage alcoholic with zero future aspirations, I now believe the Navy most-likely saved me from a life of drug addiction. Very shortly after enlisting, I realized that I’m gay, something that gave me much-needed clarity, but something that also came with a huge dose of danger. This was in 1984 when being gay in the Navy was considered a crime. Already hiding beneath my addiction and misfit ways, my hiding became that much more embedded out of safety and self-preservation.

I eventually began to find my way and served for the next 22 years, successfully climbing the ranks and loving serving my country, but also hiding my deepest self that entire time. It was an honor that took a toll, a huge toll, and when I eventually retired, I realized that I had no idea who I was anymore. My entire identity was wrapped up in my rank and my uniform.

The writing of Hiding for My Life: Being Gay in the Navy is my unique—and also a collective—story showing how gay service members sacrificed ourselves in order to serve a country we love and how our need to hide impacted everyone in our lives. Once I committed to “memoir,” I was fully invested in reliving my truth, healing, and finding perspective. I now see it as a coming-out process that liberated a deep part of myself that was not free, a concept I served to protect, yet one I have never fully been able to experience.

My purpose for writing and publishing my memoir was to not only find peace and perspective, but also to show others the soul-crushing cost and damages of hiding. My hope is that it will give anyone who reads it pause in their own lives to understand and heal their own hiding spots—because if you are human, you hide.

I will share:

• What motivated me to write my memoir.
• A few ways I confronted and worked through trauma.
• The importance of truth-telling and perspective-taking.
• How I learned to not be attached to good and/or negative feedback.
• Why I chose to publish a memoir that made me more exposed, and thus less safe, in the world.
• How writing and publishing a memoir mirrors the coming out process.

Bio
Karen Solt is a retired US Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer and the award-winning author of Hiding for My Life: Being Gay in the Navy. Karen served in the Navy from 1984 to 2006, prior to and during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. After hiding in various ways for most of her life, she considers herself a “Combat Hideologist,” and believes the way back to personal and global peace and freedom is for every human to come out from hiding and commit to living the truth of who they are. Karen holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology (counseling), is an emotional health coach, and currently resides in Northern Arizona, where she and her sweet dog, Kai, take walks in the pines, drink lattes, and watch over her feisty mother.

Website: Hideology.com