Bullied into action

"So many kids are in support of this club and it's completely changed our school. I think that our school is safe now for kids."-Kyle Sims

SWARTZ CREEK – Middle school was not a lot of fun for Kyle Sims.
"From the very first day, kids started saying things to me and calling me gay, and I had never heard that word – ever," he recalled. "I didn't really understand what that was. I started to question myself and it was a really, really hard time for me."
As a result, Sims started to self-destruct.
"I did horrible in school, I got all Es," he said. "I was just very depressed. I really didn't have any friends. It was hard for me to deal with and I gained a lot of weight. Then kids started making fun of me for that. And around the end of the seventh grade I developed an eating disorder."
Eventually, things began to turn around for Sims, but the process was slow.
"I made some friends that I guess accepted me, but I didn't tell them anything about myself," he explained. "But, at least, they didn't make fun of me, which I liked about them. Around eighth grade, I was kind of discovering myself, but I dated girls."
It was in was in high school that the butterfly began to emerge from the cocoon of self-doubt.
"I had never had any gay friends and when I went into high school, I met my very first gay person," said Sims. "Almost immediately, I came out to him. Then I slowly told all my friends and they weren't surprised by it. I didn't lose a single friend over it."
The rest of the school, however, was not as embracing.
"My peers around me did not take it well," Sims said. "What confused me about it was that they had been taunting me for years, and then when I came out they taunted me even more."
Though Sims had so far only had to deal with verbal bullying, things escalated once he entered Swartz Creek High School.
"(W)hen I was in gym class I would not want to get dressed in the locker room," Sims remembered. "I felt uncomfortable. I would get dressed in a stall. …Kids would throw things at me, like water bottles.
"I didn't feel like anyone at the school was there for me. I didn't feel like I had anybody there to tell about it, so I basically just kept it to myself."
Then, in his sophomore year, Sims met Andrea.
"She was a senior and she wanted to create a club at the school," Sims said. "There was a huge issue with bullying and we knew we needed to do something about it. So I worked with her to create this club. We called it Common Ground, and basically that was just our name for a gay-straight alliance."
The club caught on quickly, averaging 25 members a meeting, even though it was not school-sponsored and, as a result, could not be advertised in the school announcements. Then, the following year, Andrea graduated, and it was Sims' turn to pick up the mantle and run the club on his own.
"From the time we started this club there was a huge change in the atmosphere around the school," Sims said. "We got T-shirts and kids were aware of it, even if they weren't going to the meetings. Since the club started, I have not had any kind of instance where I've been bullied at the school. So we definitely felt that the club was a success … and things just kept getting better."
As he started his senior year, Sims felt that the time had come to take Common Ground to the next level.
"I wanted to expand it for the entire school and not just focus on the gay issue, because there were obviously a lot of other kids being bullied for a lot of other things," he said. "So I worked with our assistant superintendant, Dave Simaneck, who was basically going to run this club called the Power of 100. It was the club's goal to get at least 100 students to come to these meetings for the sole issue of tackling bullying in the school.
"We've had a huge turnout," Sims continued. "So many kids are in support of this club and it's completely changed our school. I think that our school is safe now for kids."
Sims, now 17, currently serves on the leadership council for the Power of 100, and as he enters his last semester, he's proud not just of his accomplishment, but of the school's.
The experience has inspired Sims to consider a career in activism.
"I'm trying to figure out what I want to do," he said. "I really love activism …that's where my true passion lies."