I’m going to start with a mash up of me quoting myself from my very first blog post once again quoting myself from an e-mail I sent to some friends about the situation which I am discussing today: “I am not here to judge anyone…” but this is something I felt was important to talk about because “…I don’t ever want anyone else to experience what I have been experiencing.” The e-mail I quoted in that initial blog post was sent after privately going Vesuvius about the events I am going to describe today.

I have to acknowledge up front that for a few of my readers there was never going to be a good time for this topic to come up. Even though I will be describing things as they are and as they happened, for some had I discussed it before resigning my membership to our former church it would have been seen as both disloyal and an attack. In discussing it now many months after my name was removed at my request from that church’s records, some will be more likely to view it as an attack rather than the description it actually is. Many of those I love are still members of our former church, and I am committed to handling these topics with as much delicacy as possible out of respect to their faith and feelings.

What happened below was always going to be a topic that came up here regardless of what I chose to do about my personal membership. And, while I have discovered that individuals will believe whatever they want to about why I left regardless of what I say, I would request that members of my former church reading this bear in mind I would never choose to do what I did simply over the events I will be writing about today, which are relatively trivial in comparison to my actual reasons for resignation.

For Tony, the worship services for the church our family used to attend were…yeah, let’s just say things were challenging. I have always tried to be as respectful as possible about how we worked with him in that environment, and he was always removed from any meeting or class if he became disruptive beyond what was tolerated by the congregation. He really wasn’t fond of the three hours of required meetings, however, and there was a period of time where trying to maintain his calm in this environment often necessitated at least 40 minutes or more on either my shoulders or Andy’s most every Sunday. We used to take turns walking with him thus in the halls or outside so that everyone else in the family could attend their designated meetings.

And yes, I did that in a dress and heels.

One Sunday early in the summer of 2017, as our little man was trying to flee the building, the Velcro strap on one of his sandals caught on the hem of my dress, taking the skirt portion upwards and flashing a gentleman from the next ward. I am quite frankly not sure who was more embarrassed.

I decided the only way to protect my personal privacy and continue to successfully help Tony in this environment was to begin wearing pants to church. Now, for many denominations this is a non-issue. Nobody would have cared. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wearing pants to church as a woman is culturally taboo in many areas, is usually associated with the Ordain Women movement, and often viewed as a direct challenge to church leadership. Either being associated with the Ordain Women movement or challenging church leadership will usually instantaneously transform someone into a social pariah in Mormon congregations. Kate Kelly, one of the founders of the Ordain Women movement, was excommunicated. Wearing pants to church if you are a woman, unfortunately, can be a pretty big deal to many of the LDS faithful.

I knew all of these things, but felt like surely my need would be obvious to the congregants around me and that it shouldn’t be that big of a deal- especially as there is no official church policy mandating dresses. My husband warned me it would be scandalous regardless. That people would be kinder to me and judge me less if I wore a miniskirt to church. We fed the missionaries assigned to our ward in the days leading up to my first Sunday wearing pants, and they also agreed it would be shocking and then fell into stunned silence.

Those of you who are local know about or have heard first hand accounts from me personally about what happened in the following weeks. I would ask those of you in that position to hold the names of everybody involved sacred and keep them off-line in association with these happenings. I believe those involved deserve the chance to learn from this and move on without personalized public excoriation. However, I also must assert my opinion that nobody who professes to follow the teachings attributed to Christ should feel comfortable refusing to say “hi” or turning away in visible disgust because someone is wearing pants instead of a skirt. While the social backlash I experienced was not my reason for resigning my membership, for some people it definitely would have been more than enough to convince them to stop coming.

The lead in picture says it all. I was quite angry when all of this happened- and as natural as that might have been, I don’t consider the intensity of my feelings to be admirable. I had been fighting one challenge after another for years, and some of the people involved in the events described in this post had front row seats to a whole bunch of that. I felt like I shouldn’t have had to explain a thing to anybody, that it should have been quite obvious I was too busy trying to take care of our son to foment rebellion of any kind.

Many people far wiser than I have stated that buried under anger is a seed of hurt. And I was certainly hurting. I felt like people cared more about what I was wearing than how I was doing, how my son was doing, how our family was doing.

All of the people who had vanished from my world as described in my post from last October on “Becoming the Socially Undead” were from this church. I had steadfastly refused to judge anyone for that, but I unfortunately was not saintly enough to avoid the sea of hurt drowning me after the pants kerfuffle.

I felt like if someone recognized that the depth of Tony’s challenges surpassed their comfort level to assist with (especially if I never asked them to be involved in the first place), that’s totally fine, but they don’t get to vote on anything that I feel is necessary to wear in the process, much less determine I am spiritually less worthy because of my attire. Prior to these events, as I was marching through the halls of church in my dress and heels with Tony contentedly up on my shoulders trying to chew on my hair, I was already experiencing a dichotomy where most men wouldn’t meet my eyes and several of the women would tell me how strong I was.

Being able to carry Tony on my shoulders was never what made me strong. But doing so in a dress and heels definitely increased my risk of injury, and I felt a whole lot of hurt because it seemed to me that some people were more concerned about whether or not I looked like a faithful member of the church than that I was able to assist our son more safely.

As I began reacting privately and talking to others about the things I was experiencing, I realized that probably most of the backlash I experienced could have been avoided if I had taken the time to reach out to more people in advance. For many individuals in our congregation, an understanding that I wasn’t actually trying to publicly attack church leadership made a huge difference in their reactions to this situation. If there is one thing I could have changed about my handling of the situation, it would have been that.

Andy was raised in that church, however through every bit of these circumstances he showered me with love, support, and fabulously sparkly Doc Martens- and I am grateful for that. He told me that if people continued to give me a hard time, I should purchase a hot pink Hillary Clinton style power suit for church. As always, thank you babe <3 but I don’t like power suits. Outside of our family, one person from our former congregation truly heard my pain about what I was experiencing and reacted with everything I think a disciple of the teachings attributed to Christ should, and next week’s gratitude note will be addressed to her.

For anyone reading this who belongs to any sort of religious community, my every hope is that you would look at the people around you and shower them with love and support regardless of what they are wearing. Every single one of us was born unclothed into this world. In that sense, everything we wear every single day of our lives is some form of costume shaped by social customs. I don’t think those customs should ever become more important than what is happening to a person.