When the child welfare system works.

I'VE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT I AM QUEER. I see being queer as a fact of my existence, like how I'm female and Black. There were always girls that I liked; I knew they liked me too. It wasn't until my early teens that I realized most people regarded being queer as taboo and that my religious family would have a problem with it.

My parents raised my sister and me as Jehovah's Witnesses on Staten Island in New York City. We studied the Bible and were only allowed to be friends with people in our religion. So, my only option was to keep my sexual orientation a secret. Keeping up this appearance, however, began to hurt. I kept the real me buried so far inside me, and I felt depressed all the time.

When I was 16, I started talking to my guidance counselor. I finally had a place to talk in secret. But one day I came to her office and my parents were there. The counselor tried to get me to disclose my feelings. I didn't. But when we went home, there was an uncomfortable distance between my parents and me. So, I told them the truth, and the discomfort became hostile.

My mother told me that my sexual orientation was just a phase and that I needed to study the example of Jesus more to better understand the role of men in our lives. My father told me I had no right to believe anything other than what I was taught.

I ran away three times. I went to friends' houses or places where queer youth hung out, like the Village. Running away made me feel that I was in control. But I knew it was a temporary solution.

My mother tried putting me into the child welfare system voluntarily. However, the Administration of Children's Services' branch on Staten Island told us that I wasn't being abused or neglected, so I had to work this out with my family. Outside of the office, I told my mom that I would just run away again. That's when she took out the PINS ("person in need of supervision") petition to put me into the foster care system.

The departure from my parents' home was abrupt. I left behind three younger siblings that I loved. I didn't fully realize how much I missed my family until I was alone in a bedroom the city provided for me. My two sisters and I had shared a room. My youngest sister used to climb into my bed at night, and the three of us would laugh and talk ourselves to sleep. That night, I couldn't sleep until the sun came up.

I started skipping school. It was just so hard to sleep at night and wake up on time. When I did go to school, I had to go through my old neighborhood and no one talked to me because I was no longer a Jehovah's Witness.

My school alerted the foster care agency to the number of days I was missing. When my caseworker pulled me in for a meeting with my social service team, I was sure I was in for a world-class screaming match. I expected them to act like my parents. To my surprise, everyone was interested in hearing what I had to say rather than in telling me how disappointed they were.

I told them about not being able to sleep and how it felt to go back and forth from Staten Island every day. We brainstormed possible solutions, like seeing a psychiatrist and getting into therapy. My caseworker at the time, Ali, went with me to the psychiatrist and took me out to lunch.

I started taking medication to help me sleep, so that I could go to classes. I transferred to The Harvey Milk School, which was then a program of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, an organization for LGBT youth. I graduated in 2003 and also started therapy at the institute to talk about my family and how to change my relationship with them.

My relationship with my social service team and with counselors at Hetrick-Martin helped me realize that I am the greatest advocate for myself. I learned that it's my responsibility to create my safe spaces and engage the help of those available to assist me. Not everyone has a good experience in the system, and I may have gotten lucky because I had the best social work team. There were times when I felt depressed and stuck between loving myself as queer and having the love of my family. The support of my case workers and therapist provided me with a middle ground between feeling totally alone and learning to embrace my own identity.

Tenaja Jordan lives in Brooklyn, New York.