An outspoken Republican lawmaker who said she was fired for her views on transgender issues is publicly misrepresenting the reasons for her termination, her former employer said.

Lisa Mazur, a Republican State Representative from Goffstown, shared on social media last week that she had been fired from her job the morning after she criticized the Weare School District’s decision to allow a transgender girl at the district’s middle school to use the girls’ bathroom.

“Ironically, I just spoke up at a [school board meeting] last night about a biological boy using the girls’ bathrooms in a middle school,” Mazur wrote on X. “Coincidence?”

Mazur’s post went viral and the state Republican party doubled down on the claim on social media and in a fundraising email.

But Nettie Rynearson, the owner of the event venue where Mazur had worked, said in her first public statement since the incident received nationwide attention that the termination was “entirely and unequivocally unrelated to politics or any recent local events.”

“The company has been aware of her political activism for years,” Rynearson wrote in an email to the Monitor. “The reason for her termination was an internal reorganization of responsibilities, strictly a business decision.”

Rynearson, who has operated The Gardens at Uncanoonuc Mountain since 2017, said that Mazur had worked full-time at the company since 2021.

Mazur declined an interview request due to her schedule.

“The timing raises serious questions,” Mazur wrote in a statement. “Ending the employment of a valued staff member in such a cold and abrupt manner doesn’t pass the smell test—it sure feels political to me.”

Mazur said on the right-wing media show Real America's Voice that she had previously been “pretty friendly” with Rynearson but that when she called, she was “cold as ice.”

“Coincidence?,” Mazur said on the show, “I highly doubt it.”

Mazur, a second-term lawmaker who represents a district that includes Weare and Goffstown, has been outspoken on transgender issues, sponsoring bills this session that would ban puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

Prior to last week’s school board meeting, a Weare administrator confirmed in a statement that a transgender student had been using the girls’ bathroom. Adhering to a state law, the school district allows students and staff to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity as opposed to their birth gender. A so-called bathroom bill going through the legislature would change that law.

During a meeting in which several people criticized existing state law and the district’s policies, Mazur asked the board to allow the transgender student to use “a private or staff bathroom” instead of the girls’ bathroom.

“Little girls shouldn’t have to be afraid to use the bathroom and hold it all day,” she said. 

  Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.