Few Sundays of my youth stand out because nearly all were spent doing the same thing: sitting inside a poorly lit, musky church somewhere near a cornfield in the upper Midwest. And I was probably wearing a certain purple cloth bracelet while I did it.

From third until the middle of sixth grade, I wore the same purple, braided WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet fastened to my wrist — in the shower, while I swam in the lake, while I ran through the sprinkler, while I slept. Wearing that bracelet at all times would help secure jewels in my heavenly crown, I was told. It represented a form of Jesus “witnessing” designed specifically for the shy and nonconfrontational, like myself.

But there’s one particular Sunday that will always stick out. I remember pointedly matching my shirt with the religious wristlet. When I arrived at church, my dad asked me to take charge of meet-and-greet — welcoming people who entered the building with a smile and a bulletin. As a relative of the pastor, I was well aware of the church’s financial woes and the board’s need to coax more attendees into becoming regular, paying members of our congregation. Spreading the gospel is expensive. We all had to play our part. My role was to be the friendly, young face at the door, ensuring guests felt comfortable and were aware of how to find the stale coffee and day-old Panera available just around the corner. And I behaved no differently when a trans woman quietly slipped in that morning.

It was cold, but she wore a pink cotton dress, tan heels, and flesh-colored stockings. She walked in with a smile on her face, wearing costume jewelry and bright red lipstick. I smiled back, gave her a bulletin, and guided her to her seat. There were a lot of stares and whispers before the service began. I don’t remember what my dad said from the pulpit that morning, but I do know no one sat next to her. She reapplied her lipstick during the sermon, sat uncomfortably during praise-and-worship. She laughed at my father’s jokes along with the rest of the congregation. When the sermon ended, I approached her with some extra pastries to take home and waved as she walked out to her car. When I came back inside, I noticed the men on the church board were huddled around my dad. One church staffer was flushed and gesticulating wildly. I watched him throw his hands in the air, turn on his heels, and follow the woman out to her car. He said something to her. She nodded and drove off. He marched back in, sporting a proud grin: “I told him if he wanted to come back, he needed to dress appropriately,” he told the group still surrounding my dad. If anyone disagreed with his etiquette, they didn’t say.

I made a point of silently cutting off the WWJD bracelet in front of my dad that day.

That Sunday was the first time I recall feeling an anger toward my family that I didn’t quite understand. I couldn’t pinpoint what had upset me. It’s not as if I were educated about the trans community or LGBTQ+ issues as a sixth grader in a small, deeply conservative, former sundown town in 2004. But allowing that woman to be publicly humiliated rattled me. The rift between myself and my conservative family broke open for the first time that Sunday, and their stance on LGBTQ+ issues continues to serve as the heart of the social and political differences that keep us distant to this day.