Broward School Board Member Headlined Anti-"Groomer" Rally While on Workers Comp

Talk about dedication to the cause.

Despite being on workers compensation from her job following a recent back injury, Broward County School Board member Brenda Fam spoke at a Fort Lauderdale rally over the weekend hosted by groups accused of promoting anti-LGBTQ theories. Photos and videos posted online show Fam standing and sermonizing before a small group at the corner of Oakland Park and Federal Highway while leaning on a cane and wearing what appears to be a back brace.

"We really need your help. We do not want our children to get changed from the morals that we stand for," Fam says in one clip. "So keep fighting, stay aware of what is happening...see something, say something."

She adds, "You can certainly send it to me and I'll make sure the right person hears about it."

In a phone call, Fam confirmed that she remains on workers compensation and has been working remotely after a refrigerator door fell on her at work several weeks ago. (Sun Sentinel's Scott Travis previously reported that Fam was hospitalized and "heavily medicated" following the incident.)

"Yes, I made a brief stop at a rally," Fam tells New Times. "I can talk. I can still use my voice. If [people] don't feel I should use my voice and participate in a minimal capacity, how can I hold onto my job?"

Fam was one of several speakers at the "worldwide" Stop the War on Children Rally, whose South Florida lineup included flat earther and singer Jimmy Levy (he refers to Earth as a "firmament" per biblical terminology), and Moms for Liberty's Eulalia Jimenez. Gays Against Groomers, a main organizer of the rally, is known to push the baseless theory that a mass campaign is underway to "groom" and sexualize young children while courting them into LGBTQ lifestyles. The group was founded last year by the 2020 election denier Jaimee Michell and has promoted rallies attended by the extremist Proud Boys. 

Florida Fathers for Freedom, one of the groups that promoted the event, said that 80 similar events were held over the weekend in other cities, "driven by parents' groups advocating for the rights and well-being of children."

During the rally on Saturday, protesters held up signs that read, "There are only two genders," "Gender-affirming care is chemical castration," and "Stop grooming our children." A small group of counter-protesters gathered across the road and hoisted posters that read, "Fuck you" and "Trans kids are holy."

Fam asserts that her attendance at the rally while on workers comp was important to her and that she doesn't see it as a problem. If it was "an LGBTQ rally," she says, people would likely react differently.

"I wasn't bowling," Fam says. "You know what they say: haters are gonna hate."

A lawyer and part-time flight attendant from Davie, Fam is one of nine Broward County School Board members and represents District 6, which encompasses Weston, Sunrise, Plantation, and Davie, among other communities in southwest Broward County.

After the refrigerator injury, Fam was not in attendance at the Broward school board meeting on October 17.

In a pre-election Sun Sentinel profile, she voiced support for HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act AKA the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which prohibits teachers from discussing sexuality with students in public schools before fourth grade. She claimed in the interview that teachers are indoctrinating students with leftist ideas, consciously and unconsciously.

"Students readily admit that they are afraid of being cancelled or excluded socially if they do not go along, Indoctrination is occurring as many students eventually succumb to peer pressure," Fam said.

Last December, one month after securing a seat on the Broward County School Board, Fam attended another rally in Fort Lauderdale during which protesters, including members of the Proud Boys, stoked age-old phobias that there is a mass effort to groom children into homosexuality.

As previously reported by New Times, she was photographed speaking at the "Protect the Children" rally organized by conservative groups Moms for Liberty Miami, Florida Fathers for Freedom, and Gays Against Groomers.

Flyers for that event, which was promoted on the far-right outlet One America News Network, featured a cartoon of parents holding up an umbrella to shield their children from a rainbow, a symbol of gay pride.