Meet the lesbian who grew up in a religious cult run by a polyamorous throuple
Katey Brooks grew up in a polyamorous cult (PinkNews)
Lesbian singer-songwriter Katey Brooks had a more than an unusual upbringing – she grew up in a religious cult run by a polyamorous throuple that labelled her “sick” for dressing in boys’ clothes.
The cult, which still exists today but Katey wishes not to be named for her own safety, taught that worshipping the polyamorous leader would lead to being able to “live forever in a physical body”.
Speaking exclusively to PinkNews, she explains that the Bristol-based cult left her feeling “scared” of herself as the leader would declare: “I am Christ, you have to worship me like Jesus.”
She finally escaped age 15 when the cult’s leaders publicly shamed her parents in front of “a thousand” cult members for not conforming to gender roles.
Watch Katey Brooks reveal what it was like growing up in a religious cult:
Being shamed out of the cult.
Katey Brooks grew up questioning both her sexuality and gender.
She knew that she wasn’t attracted to boys but being a member of a cult made it harder to come to terms with being a lesbian.
Life in the cult was particularly different from other children’s lives and this made her feel very separate from society.
The isolation made her “compound everything to do with her sexuality” to the point where she became “scared of [herself]”.
Even harder was the cult’s intolerance towards members who expressed themselves outside of heterosexuality and binary gender.
When Katey Brooks was a child, she identified as a boy and asked to be called Peter.
This lead to public shaming in front of “about a thousand people”, where she and her family were told by the religious leader that “there was something wrong with [her]”.
She adds: “my mum was singled out while I was asleep under her chair, but I woke up to hear what they said.
“I told my mum that I’d change and I changed from that day onwards.
“I’m alright with being a woman, I like being a woman.”
The cult leaders were in a polyamorous throuple.
However, Katey believes the hard disciplinary treatment that they punished her with was hypocritical because the cult was run by a polyamorous throuple.
The throuple consisted of a married man and wife, plus an additional man who all lived together.
Despite their apparent liberalness when it came to their relationship, they “used to shame people like me for trying to be who I was”.
She says that coming out has been a slow process because of the “internalised homophobia” she had from her childhood.
Coming to terms with her sexuality.
Brooks shared that she was scared of her sexuality for a long time because she grew up having to suppress her identity.
It wasn’t until she left the cult and developed feelings for a female best friend that she realised she was a lesbian.
However, she says that becoming confident in her sexuality continued to be a challenge and only very recently started using female pronouns in her lyrics.
“For a long time, I kept my sexuality private sharing it only with my family and friends,” she explains.
But now in her most recent album Revolute, she has decided it’s better to “to be who I am”.
Adding, “I just needed to let go and that’s been massively liberating for me”.
