Teaching assistant fired over OnlyFans vows to fight for her job back
A BC teaching assistant who was fired last month over her OnlyFans side hustle says she’s disappointed with the Coquitlam School Board’s decision and has filed a grievance with her union over the matter.
Kristin Macdonald told Daily Hive she found out she was terminated in a lengthy letter from the school district on June 16. The district called her conduct “egregious” following an investigation this spring where staff showed her printouts from her OnlyFans account — confirming to Macdonald that her colleagues had paid to see her content.
“I don’t think it’s fair… I’m sick of people shaming the ones making the content, yet it’s very widely accepted that people look at pornography,” she said. “Are my male colleagues going to be disciplined for being a subscriber to an OnlyFans account?”
Macdonald said the discipline process made her feel discriminated against, and while she acknowledges people may have moral judgements when it comes to sex work, she doesn’t believe she should lose her job over it.
She’d been a teaching assistant for students with special needs for eight years and is mourning the loss of her career.
“I feel upset. I feel sad. I feel disappointed,” she said.
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Macdonald has been creating content on OnlyFans, an 18+ subscriber-based site known for custom pornography, since 2020. She used the much-needed extra income to support herself and her infant daughter.
She took precautions to keep her online side hustle separate from her career in education by using the pseudonym Ava James online and blocking colleagues from seeing her social media pages. But still, word got out. She received a cease-and-desist letter from the district this spring warning her to take down her OnlyFans and social media pages or face termination.
Macdonald didn’t back down and shared what she was going through with Daily Hive in an exclusive story. Over the course of the spring, she met with school district officials during their investigation — where she said comments were made that caused her discomfort.
“It wasn’t a good feeling to hear comments from my coworkers on my appearance, and how I don’t belong in a school system or in a school working with kids. How I’m a danger [to] children because of what I do in my private time,” she said.
She characterized the comments from workers with the district as “opinion-based” that relied on stereotypes related to sex work rather than “actual labour laws or collective agreements.”
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The union representing education assistants is working with her on the grievance over her dismissal, and she says it will take time before the process finishes. Macdonald was on unpaid leave from her teaching assistant position due to a back injury, and expects she needs another back surgery before she’s ready to work in the classroom again.
Daily Hive has reached out to the union and to the school district for comment, but did not hear back before deadline.
As for Macdonald’s next steps, she said the decision has forced her to make lemonade out of lemons.
“I’ve been given no choice but to focus on my online job and trying to expand that way,” she said. “But I’m also taking the legal routes and understanding my rights and moving forward in that regard as well.”