When the Law is Not on Your Side: Queerness, Safety, and Resistance in the Dominican Republic

Isabella Rivera Volquez University of Chicago

Abstract

This paper explores the effect of the new Dominican Código Penal [“Penal/Criminal Code of Law”], drafted and approved in 2021, on the queer community. I draw on content posted on the internet and social media sites, namely Twitter and Instagram, to assess the relationship between law and religion, queer people’s actual and perceived safety, and what future organizers are working towards in the Dominican Context. It particularly focuses on the work of RD Es De Todes, a queer collective that emerged in response to the new Penal Code. My findings demonstrate that the law is shaped by the government’s relationship with the Church and are indeed repressive and detrimental to the lives of queer people and should thus be repealed. In addition, it shows that the Dominican LGBTQ movement is demanding the protection of queer people and other vulnerable populations and advocating for equal rights. This study contributes to sociological literature on gender and sexuality in the Dominican Republic and overlaps with social movement research.

Introduction

In 2021, the Dominican Congress wrote a completely new Código Penal [“Penal Code”, translated by me] for the first time in 137 years. Reflecting the strong Catholic, heteronormative, and patriarchal culture of Dominican society, the code criminalizes abortion, does not recognize sexual orientation or gender as a motive for homicide or torture, and makes exceptions for discriminatory behavior based on religious values. The Penal Code, which officials are calling ‘progressive’, fails to represent the entirety of the Dominican population and address situations that endanger the lives of gender non-conforming and non-heterosexual folks. Despite this, Dominican LGBTQ+ individuals still exist and participate in most areas of Dominican society, both on the island and in communities abroad, and are protesting these injustices both online and in-person. What does this new wave of protests and organizing say about the relationship between the law and religion? What effect does this dynamic have on queer people’s actual and perceived safety? What is the kind of society that queer organizers are working towards?

To investigate these questions, I selected and analyzed digital content responding to the drafting and eventual approval of the Penal Code, and I argue that the Dominican government is deliberately attacking the livelihoods of queer people to preserve normative notions of family and life as well as protect economic and political interests. Moreover, I demonstrate that the extent to which queer people are safe is dependent on the other identities that they hold, such as their race, occupation, and socioeconomic status, and that organizers are taking an intersectional approach to building community and increasing the visibility of and protections for queer people in the Dominican Republic. This study does not include first-hand accounts of violence or the queer experience outside of those that were posted online, thereby only featuring snapshots of people’s lives and experiences.

First, I detail the theoretical framework of this case study, which relies on literature defining the concept of Dominican national heterosexuality, state-sanctioned and interpersonal violence against queer people (both in the context of the D.R and others), and social movement theory. I go on to describe my data collection and selection process, as well as my method of analysis. I then discuss my research findings and draw some broader conclusions, keeping the limitations of my study in mind.

Theoretical Framework

A. Dominican National Heterosexuality

In Dominican culture, family is of the utmost importance. Getting married, having children, and passing on the family name is not only an aspiration for some, but an expectation for all, leaving little room for anything or anyone that might deviate from that ideal. The Dominican constitution states that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, delegitimizing queer people, queer relationships, and queer families. The fixation on national morality and the sanctity of the family are products of Dictator Rafael Trujillo’s “maternalist[ic] discourse of nation-as-family”i and his promises to protect women, children, and the Dominican home. Manley demonstrates that even in resisting Trujillato, female activists drew on this discourse and amplified traditional family values to establish that the regime was directly violating the home and emphasizing their specifically maternal contributions in society. This reinforces the gendered framework that women’s maternal role in the home is crucial to the operation of Dominican society; thus, they must not only be protected, but their participation in that role must also be maintained.

Existent literature on gender and sexuality in the Dominican Republic focuses on Catholic influence on mainstream perceptions of queerness. The Catholic Church and Evangelical Christianity were intertwined with the ideas of public (national) morality and the sanctity of the family that the Trujillo regime upheld. The dictator signed a political agreement with the Vatican that solidified the relationship between the government and the Church in 1954. In Streetwalking, Ana-Maurine Lara refers to the Dominican Republic as a Catholic-Hispanic nation-state, which “references the explicit, long-term relationship between the Spanish colonial Dominican nation-state and the Roman Catholic Church”.ii This relationship not only directly affects policy and public morality. The colonization of the island itself has had everlasting consequences for what is both implicitly and explicitly considered a person. Lara explains that Catholic colonial universalism, meaning that the correct embodiment of Christianity is the measure of universal personhood,iii has dire consequences for those who fail to meet those standards.

It is useful to contextualize current state-sanctioned violence against gender and sexual minorities in the Dominican Republic in this backdrop of the literal struggle to protect the idea of the heterosexual nuclear family. Because queer people threaten this normative idea of the family, failing to disincentivize discrimination and violence against queer people using moral and religious justifications attempts to protect the sanctity of the home as well. This ties into the concept of “gender panic”, anxieties that cause people to attempt to protect the binary logic that gender-segregated spaces are predicated on and reproduce.iv Thinking about gender and sexual panic/anxieties is useful in the Dominican context because it gets at a phenomenon behind the fixation to preserve the sanctity of the family by excluding queer folk from the public sphere.

The transformation of normative gender constructs in the Dominican Republic and thus, deviation from universal Catholic ideals of personhood has been mostly centered on the growth of tourism and the service economy. In their 2018 study, Padilla & Castellanos reframe the debate by focusing on the social processes that are shaping the local gendered responses to neoliberalism--moving beyond tourism to the Dominican LGBT movement--and how they are related to increased access to global media . The findings that the LGBT movement and global media has threatened notions of normative masculinity and that certain kinds of men are at the center of anxieties about the gendered and sexed fate of the nation, have important implications for the socio-symbolic significance of the new Dominican Penal Code, RD Es De Todes, and the material consequences for queer Dominicans. This is especially relevant because “as the D.R becomes further embedded within globalized economic structures, it is also further consolidating its Catholic Hispanic territorial and ethno-racial claims,” leaving those who challenge them even more vulnerable.v The recent anti-LGBTQ policies in the Penal Code exemplify this, calling for further investigation into the Catholic Church’s law-making power.

My research findings support the literature on the consequences of the deep-rooted relationship between the Church and the Dominican Government, as well as the Dominican fixation on the sanctity of the nuclear family and traditional family values. Moreover, my investigation of the Catholic Church’s law-making power in relation to recent exclusionary policies will shed light on current mainstream beliefs about queer people and their impacts on queer people.

A. Violence and the State

Theorists have explored how Christian coloniality shapes a modernity that relies on perpetuating sexual terror, xenophobic racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Ana-Maurine Lara develops this concept of sexual terror, which “refers to the modes of violence that permeate the social body, striking against those whose desires, feelings, and erotic dispositions do not conform to Christian colonial morality”, by building on the theorization of racial terror embedded in the U.S South. In assessing the material and perceived safety of LGBTQ+ Dominicans, it is important to understand exactly how sexual terror is employed and the effects it has on queer Dominicans. Sexual terror is present in the nation’s laws and policies, for example. Lara finds that “while protective laws are often ignored or not enforced, repressive laws are enforced quite heavily against and through those deemed undesirable”vi which is not only evident in the ways laws are written but also affects the lived experiences of shows in the experiences of queer folks. My research applies the notion of sexual terror to the case of the new Dominican Penal Code and its consequences in the present context, particularly in how it emboldens law enforcement and civilians to be violent towards queer folks, thus threatening their sense of safety.

Jacqueline Polanco’s Musings Over the Moon provides insight into a variety of lesbian experiences and the pain that results from being oppressed and discriminated against--stories which were previously lacking from queer Dominican literature and scholarship. However, accounts of Dominican trans people’s experiences in relation to safety and violence are nonexistent in both Dominican literature and sociological work. By using testimonial evidence of violence and discrimination, I aim to amplify the voices of queer people in the Dominican Republic, specifically trans women, thereby filling this gap.

The issue of security and state-sanctioned violence in the Dominican Republic has been studied, although not directly in relation to queer folks. According to Lilian Bobea (2011), the Dominican Republic suffers from institutional deficits such as the lack of transparency, excessive use of force against civilians, and the absence of public policies that regulate the state. This article identifies a culture of insecurity in Dominican society which fosters distrust amongst citizens across different socioeconomic status and of law enforcement, resulting in poor communities to focus on self-protection and rich communities to privatize security. Police are known to be abusive and corrupt, and their involvement in criminal activities has been documented.vii There is a belief that police will not only fail to protect citizens but will use lethal force and harsh penalties to punish minor infractions, specifically those committed by poor people and members of marginalized communities. My research will contribute to these findings by detailing the exact ways in which police are abusing their power to discriminate against and inflict violence on queer people in the Dominican Republic and how this affects the material safety and security of queer folks.

The idea of transformational politics is particularly useful in theorizing about relative degrees of safety and security depending on the intersection of identities in the context of queer Dominicans. Cathy Cohen argues truly radical or transformative politics are based on one’s relation to power which results from queer activism.viii The article thinks through non-normative and marginal positions beyond the queer/hetero divide, using literature about queer theory and queer politics as a starting point. Cohen envisions a politics that rejects cultural norms of acceptable sexual behavior and identification and instead embraces political strategies that promote self-definition and full expression of these identities. I will be using a transformational politics framework in examining activist’s effort to push back against the Dominican Penal Code, and how intersectional identities are recognized within these efforts and the broader LGBTQ+ movement in the country.

B. Social Movements

Social movements provide a way to explore the relationship between action and social structures. Whether that be regulatory actions executed by institutions or resistance from activists and marginalized people, social movements shed light on how social structures are upheld, how those impact lived experiences of entire groups of people, and where people envision these social structures to evolve. Thus, understanding social movements is crucial in understanding how LGBTQ+ Dominicans are affected by the sociopolitical climate of their country and the change their collective efforts are trying to affect.

The definition of social movements is constantly evolving, especially with the rise of social media and online activism. Gemma Edwards outlines four conceptual distinctions of social movements as follows: (1) that social movements are collective, organized efforts at social change rather than individual efforts; (2) social movements exist over a ‘period of time’ by engaging in a ‘conflictual issue’ with a ‘powerful opponent’; (3) the members of a social movement share a ‘collective identity’; (4) social movements pursue change by employing protest. However, these debates are far from resolved. New contexts through which to look at protest call into question the distinctions between individual and collective efforts at change, and whether protest events are necessary for movements especially since the social media context makes acts of “protest” more individualized. I seek to answer these questions through an analysis of LGBTQ+ activism online, particularly through twitter hashtags and the social media pages of social movement organizations.

With the rise of social media, social movements have incorporated the usage of these platforms in their efforts to spread awareness of their issue, recruit participants, and organize.

Caren, Andrews, and Lu review research on how the media environment has impacted participation, mobilization, and the impacts of activism in relation to Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and Far Right Movements, finding that “social media platforms are now a regular part of the activist tool kit and are central to the hybrid media environment.”ix The Black Lives Matter movement, for instance, used social media platforms as spaces for pro-movement messaging, expressions of solidarity, and reactions to police brutality. Moreover, the BLM movement was born out of a hashtag, which concretized and continues to hold social meanings that are then useful in organizing both on and offline. Bonilla and Rosa find that hashtag-driven activism functions as a site for discovery and deliberation of grievances as well as for constructing counternarratives on social issues,x challenging mainstream media’s gatekeeping role.

Nevertheless, scholarship on online far-right activism demonstrates that social media platforms do not inherently support oppressed communities but rather can be used to further oppress underrepresented communities and support existing structures of powerxi due to the way algorithms function and create echo-chambers. This is something that is important to keep in mind as I study RD Es De Todes. Because most of my data comes from social media sites, more specifically Instagram and Twitter, this article is useful in looking at how these platforms both facilitate and limit people’s participation in protesting the Penal Code, sharing their stories, and organizing in a hybrid media environment. Caren, Andrews, and Lu suggest that future research should explore questions of social media access, effects of online activism, and the algorithm, all of which my research will touch on.

Literature on the framing of social problems and frame alignment processes is also useful. Frame alignment means that the activities, goals, and ideology of a social movement organization are congruent and complementary to individual interests, values, and beliefs.xii The concept of domain specific frame transformation is a particularly relevant strategy employed as a way to change the relationship between two or more categories. These transformations seem to be necessary in movements “that seek dramatic changes in status, treatment or activity, of a category of people” by reframing these as inexcusable, immoral, or unjust.xiii Reframing effects of social structures is one of the principal ways in which to mobilize participation in movements working to effect change.

Existent literature on collective action related to the LGBTQ+ movement in the Dominican Republic is focused on physical/in-person demonstrations and protests. In contrast, my research looks at social media activism and the utilization of social media affordances to advance the cause and mobilize both online and in-person participation in the movement. My research fills gaps on how the LGBTQ+ movement in the D.R operates in the digital age through analyzing the work of RD Es De Todes, thus showing ways in which individualized collective action can be effective in resisting oppressive policies and promoting anti-violence sentiments and the safety of queer folks.

Current discourse surrounding the new Dominican Código Penal provides a useful case study for the material and perceived realities of queer life in the country, particularly in relation to the question of safety. My research develops a comprehensive snapshot of the livelihoods of queer people in the Dominican Republic through an analysis of policy, the relationship between church and state, and online activism.

Data and Methods

To investigate whether queer people feel safe in the Dominican Republic, I focused on content that centered on the response to the drafting and eventual approval of the new Código Penal [“Penal Code”, translated by me], which removed protections for LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized groups. The data I collected was content posted on social media, published in Dominican news outlets, and published on the internet more broadly. More specifically, I analyzed a collection of tweets, Instagram posts, blog posts, newspaper articles, statements, and a podcast episode to gauge who felt affected by these new legislations, what people feel is at stake for them, the potential consequences for the lives and safety for the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized communities, and the power dynamics between the government and religious institutions.

Initially, I selected the tweets from hashtags that I had seen on my feed before starting this project and knew were trending in response to the Penal Code: #DontCometoDR and #DRIsNotLGBTQFriendly. From looking at tweets containing these hashtags, I noticed they used other hashtags, this time in Spanish - #YoNoVotePorLaIglesia, #UnCodigoNoUnTollo, and #FuriaPájara [#Ididntvoteforthechurch, #ACodeNotAMess, and #GayFury, translated by me]. I included 11 tweets written and posted by Dominicans living in the Dominican Republic because I felt that would provide me with the most insight as to what the situation is for queer people there. I included some tweets by Dominicans living in the United States that provided accurate information about the Dominican Government’s actions and the response by Dominican activists but excluded those that expressed personal feelings about those actions given that their livelihood is not directly affected due to their geographic location.

These tweets eventually led me to find the twitter of RD Es De Todes [DR is for Everyone, translated by me], a queer collective that formed in direct response to the Dominican Government’s attacks on the rights of anyone who is queer, racialized, disabled, poor, or a woman. After finding their twitter (@rdesdetodes), I went to their Instagram page where they had links to their website which contains blog posts, press releases, the mission of the organization, and their list of demands to the senate to modify the Penal Code. RD Es De Todes’ Instagram posts provide updates and developments about the Penal Code and associated protests, which also proved useful to contextualize queer people’s experience and organizing. Through their Instagram, I also found out about “Wilferland”, a podcast hosted by an openly gay couple living in the Dominican Republic, that created an episode featuring RD Es De Todes.

My research method is qualitative content analysis. I believe that a qualitative method is fitting to my research question because the content provides a concrete and documented timeline of events and responses to those events that illustrate the protections that queer people have and reveal how they are affected physically, mentally, and materially by them. My strategy to code this data was simple manual coding, using different color highlighters for each of the themes I located in the texts. The themes that emerged from the data were law, religion, gender, coalitionbuilding/collective action, violence, fear, and inclusivity/intersectionality. Moreover, I added annotations of things that came to mind when I noticed certain themes in their respective colors, as well as key words. I decided to not translate any sources from Spanish to English before coding them to maintain the essence of the meaning they are trying to convey. However, I code these Spanish-language texts in English to facilitate the process of analyzing them since my analysis will ultimately be written in English. After coding these texts, I translated them from English to Spanish myself, without the help of a translation service. For the podcast episodes and any additional audio content, I transcribed sections of the audio manually. I selected these sections based on their relevance to my research question, meaning that they were either referring to the dynamics between social institutions (law, religion, medicine, etc.), how queer people are treated in Dominican society, or to the socio-legal protections that are or are not afforded to them.

To supplement my qualitative data on state-sanctioned violence and fear, I utilized quantitative data in the form of statistics about safety and violence against LGBTQ+ people in the Dominican Republic. This data came from the first “National Survey for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex People” ever conducted, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Embassy of the United Kingdom’s “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean” program implemented by the United Nations. The Institute for Research in

Gender

and Family Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (IGEF-UASD) analyzed the survey results in the report.

As a white lesbian Dominican immigrant to the U.S, this topic is close to my heart. However, I have not lived in the Dominican Republic for over 11 years and have not participated in Dominican politics by voting or doing activism, so my first-hand knowledge of the current situation is limited to the data I am collecting. While my inability to physically be in my field of study may be a limitation to this study, I believe that this distance allows me to maintain an appropriate level of objectivity while collecting and analyzing my data. Overall, my research on the content created and posted by Dominican activists and citizens provides much insight into mainstream attitudes towards queerness in the Dominican Republic and how that is impacting the safety and livelihood of LGBTQ+ people.

Results

First, I will explore what the Penal Code and its new problematic policies reveal about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Dominican state and discuss the implications it has on the Dominican state, especially the lives of LGBTQ+ folks. Then, I will talk about queer people’s vulnerability to violence and stigma and how that affects their sense of safety and comfort living true to their identities. Lastly, I will discuss RD Es De Todes’ demands to Congress and organizing efforts to paint a picture of what queer people are doing about the current situation and their vision for the future.

A. Church as State: Religion’s Law-Making Power

The language of the Penal Code’s addition to Article 186 on discrimination, which states, “there will be no discrimination when the service provider or employer bases the refusal by the objection of religious, ethical, moral conscience, or institutional requirements” [translation by

Mitú] reveals an explicit relationship between law-making and religion in the Dominican Republic. One of the key actors in creating this exclusionary Penal Code is Representative Isabel de la Cruz, an avid defender of women’s and children’s rights, who introduced the last-minute changes to articles about discrimination, torture, and homicide by removing protections and additional penalties for motives based on gender identity and sexual orientation. This addition was accompanied by the removal of the clause that criminalized discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender. Because the relationship between the church and state is directly impacting legal protections of the Dominican queer community, it is crucial to understand how this relationship operates and the consequences of it.

A women’s and children’s rights activist pushing for this kind of legislation is not surprising in this context, considering the idea of the sanctity of the Dominican family and the notion of catholic universalisms. The failure of queer people to embody Catholic standards of personhood makes them a threat to the familial values embedded in Dominican culture. This creates gendered and sexed panics surrounding the fate of the nation. Thus, queer people’s existence and behavior should be prevented through deterrence, meaning discrimination, exclusion, and intimidation.

This last-minute change to the Penal Code appears to have been a strategic move on behalf of the Dominican government. The LGBTQ+ community had their guard down as they thought they had made great progress since the initial draft of the Penal Code had recognized sexual orientation and gender identity as reasons for discrimination and criminalized conversion therapy and thus were more focused on advocating for abortion rights. Israel Armando Jose Rosado, a Dominican lawyer, posted an article detailing the implications of Isabel de la Cruz’ actions, concluding that:

La igualdad y el respeto, que no solo son valores rectores del estado, sino derechos constitucionales se han visto afectados puesto que, la objeción de conciencia primará frente a la defensa de estos derechos. [Equality and respect, which are not only guiding values of the state, but constitutional rights will be threatened since moral and religious conscience will prevail over the defense of these rights]

Legally defining discrimination by excluding instances of mistreatment based on religious and moral prejudices prioritizes those belief systems over the actual physical and emotional harm caused to whole groups of people. Moreover, Israel’s statement implies that there is both a lack of separation of church and state, and that potentially the notion of church or religion is valued over the state and the law. Ultimately, these changes communicate that in the Dominican Republic, gender identity and sexual orientation are not identity categories for which one can be vulnerable to oppression and violence while simultaneously attempting to erase these categories and illegitimatize them.

Activists perceive the Dominican government’s motivations behind these changes to be political and economic interests intertwined with religious institutions, namely the Catholic Church. In the Wilferland RD Es De Todes episode, Host Fernando Acevedo and El Editor Cuir cite evidence to support that the Penal Code currently reflects the government’s anti-gay agenda:

[05:02] – El Editor Cuir

Por ejemplo, aquí hay una práctica que hay muchas instituciones que hacen las mal llamadas terapia de conversión de sexualidad. [For example, lots of institutions practice the badly called conversion therapy] Ósea, hay un documental, vienen gente de los Estados Unidos…son los mismos que están metiendo esa presión dentro del Senado y dentro del Congreso. [There’s a documentary, there are institutions that come from the U.S and practice it here… they are the same ones that are applying pressure in Congress and the Senate]

[05:24] - Fernando

Es muy bueno que tú mencione eso. Ósea, literalmente hay una agenda. [It’s good that you mention that. There is literally an agenda] Ellos tienen una agenda para permitir ese tipo de negocio [The government has an agenda to allow that kind of business]

The fact that conversion therapy is permitted by the law and is not included in the Code’s torture article is not to be distinguished from the fact that the Catholic Church and associated domestic and U.S institutions profit from these programs. Economic interests are placed above the undeniable severe pain and suffering caused to LGBTQ+ folks subjected to these therapies,xiv although they are advertised as promoting a social and moral good. This goes hand-in-hand with the cultural fixation on the “sexually pure” Dominican family and the anxieties that queer people provoke around the sexed and gendered fate of the nation.xv In this way, queer people are looked upon as a threat, and their humanity becomes almost irrelevant.

On top of not recognizing the harm that conversion therapy does to queer folks, it legitimizes the principle behind conversion therapy – that being queer is a choice, and that if one tries hard enough, one can be cisgender and heterosexual, as God wills everyone to be. This is because the existence and participation of queer people in the public sphere directly poses a threat to the power of these institutions, as “institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.”xvi Evidently, weaponizing gender and sexuality by making queer existence as unsafe as possible is key to maintaining the white supremacist, patriarchal, and heteronormative standards that serve as the backbone to the Dominican government and Catholic Church.

In the same way that religion uses the law to reinforce definitions of gender and sexuality that serve its institutions, the law uses religion to do the same. In the podcast “Wilferland,” El Editor Cuir and Maffel Santana from RD Es De Todes focused on the fact that changes to the legal definition of discrimination allows for members of private institutions to discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation, race, and religion if it goes against the moral, ethical, and religious values of that institution. To illustrate what this looks like, one of the hosts describes a hypothetical situation:

[01:55] – Fernando si yo no te quiero dar una mesa en mi restaurant porque tú vienes con tu novio [if I don’t want to seat you at my restaurant because you came with your boyfriend] y evidentemente ustedes los dos son pájaros, se nota [and evidently you are both gay, it’s obvious]. Yo tengo todo el derecho a negarte la entrada a mi negocio [I have every right to refuse you entrance to my business]

[02:03] – El Editor Cuir

Si, bueno, a ver, no todo el derecho, pero no está penalizado por la ley. [Well, not every right, but that is not penalized by the law] Ósea, tú no coge cárcel como tú cogerías con cualquier otra forma de discriminación en principio [You won’t be put in jail like you would for any other act of discrimination on principle], pero ahora ni siquiera solamente maricón ósea cualquier persona se pudiera agarrar de ahí para discriminar por sexo, por género o por raza, por religión [but this is now not only the case for discrimination against gay people but anyone can use this to discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, race, and religion].

El Editor Cuir makes the point that the new code would protect anyone from being penalized for discriminating against the gay couple, given that he justifies his actions with religious beliefs or moral values. The effects of this discrimination law illustrate the idea that “heteronormativity is more than ideology, or prejudice, or phobia against gays and lesbians; it is produced in almost every aspect of the forms and arrangements of social life.”xvii The addition of exemptions based on moral, ethical, and religious values not only excuses but almost encourages this discriminatory behavior. Not only that, but because heteronormativity is related to whiteness, ability, and class, these heteronormative legislations can put the rights and lives of all marginalized people at risk.

C. State-Sanctioned Violence and Fear of Coming Out

In assessing the safety of members of the LGBTQ+ community in the Dominican Republic, it is crucial to bring attention to the violence and stigma queer people are subjected to, both by the state and their loved ones. Lara’s notion of sexual terror describes most of this violence and exclusion and affects how queer people feel they can live their lives.

In 2020, the United Nation’s first ever National Survey for LGBTQ+ people in the Dominican Republic found that queer people were exposed to violence and discrimination from a very young age, with 96.7% having been victims of violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Most people who experienced violence during adolescence identify as men (both cis and trans), and these acts of violence take the form of offensive comments, sexual violence, and physical aggression. About 45% of study participants reported suffering detention, interrogation, or unjustified aggression by law enforcement, demonstrating that the state is not only complicit but an active perpetrator of violence against queer people (Encuesta Nacional LGBTI 2020).xviii The fact that this is the first time a survey of this kind has ever been conducted goes to show that the experiences of LGBTQ people have been kept in the shadows for too long, and even more violence and abuse has gone undetected.

The trending hashtags #DontCometoDR and #DRIsNotLGBTQFriendly in response to the modifications to the Penal Code that takes away the few protections that LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people have in the Dominican Republic, included tweets with anecdotal evidence of state-sanctioned violence against queer people, especially trans women and people of color. One Dominican Twitter user states: MariAngeles una chica trans trabajadora sexual, fue apresada por una patrulla de la PN, obligada a hacerle felación a toda la patrulla, le robaron el dinero de la noche, la violaron y amenazaron. [MariAngeles, a trans sex worker, was arrested by a National Police patrol. They forced her to perform oral sex to all members of the patrol, stole the money she made that night, raped her, and threatened her] Un Código Penal incluyente, no excluyente. #YoNoVotePorLaIglesia #UnCodigoNoUnTollo [An inclusive, not exclusive Penal Code. #IDidntVotefortheChurch #ACodeNotAMess]

By citing an instance of law enforcement’s sexual abuse of a trans sex worker and using the hashtag #IDidntVotefortheChurch, this tweet draws a connection between the protections that the law provides (or rather, does not provide) LGBTQ+ people and the Catholic Church’s power and ideology. The violation of this person, both permitted and enacted by the law, is used to exemplify the need for policy that prevents police from abusing marginalized people, or at least penalizes their behavior. Moreover, it sheds light on the lived experience of trans and gendernonconforming people in the Dominican Republic, particularly sex workers, who seek clients on the streets and thus are more vulnerable to police and civilian violence. Sex work is a common occupation for trans women in the country. It’s important to contextualize this with the fact that the law permits workplace and employment discrimination, which can affect their ability to secure a job outside of sex work.

While a queer person’s occupation may make them more vulnerable to violence, it is most definitely not the only reason law enforcement targets them. A dark skin bisexual undergraduate student majoring in biology tweeted about his recent traumatic encounter with police, who gave him no explanation during his arrest. In the tweet thread, he recounted what led up to his arrest, what officers said to him, and his experience in jail:

A las 10:00pm yo salí del gimnasio, que queda cerca de casa. Ahí me interceptó una patrulla y pidió mi cédula [I left the gym, which is close to my house, at 10pm. Then, the police stopped me and asked for my ID] Yo no andaba con ella de manera física y cuando iba a mostrársela, dijo "súbase a la patrulla... maricón este que anda encuero" (andaba en ropa de gym) [I didn’t have it with me, but when I was going to show him a picture of it, he said “get in the car… fag walking around naked” (I was wearing gym clothes)]

El policial, claramente homófobo, escucha que en una de las celdas hay unos hombres diciendo que me van a abusar sexualmente, otra celda no dijo nada. ¿Adivinen en cual me pusieron? [The clearly homophobic officer hears that in one of the cells there are men yelling that they’re going to sexually abuse me, and in the other cell no one says anything. Guess which one they put me in?]

Dentro de la celda…uno de los que estaba voceando improperios, me manoseo e intento abusar de mi. Tuve que ponerle tema para que dejaran de manosearme [In the cell, one of the men who were yelling groped me and tried to abuse me. I had to make conversation so that they would stop groping me]

The circumstances of the young man’s arrest point to profiling, considering that police stopped him for no reason other than to check his documentation, and refused to check his proof of ID or his actual ID that his mother had once she caught up to the patrol car he was in. The language the officer used while making the arrest, labeling the young man as un “maricón”, in addition to refusing to take his identification and detaining him in a jail cell with men who had expressed they wanted to hurt him shows that the officer deliberately put him in a vulnerable position for being (or simply appearing to be) LGBTQ+. Police may have also targeted him because of his race, as asking for documentation is often a tool of oppression against undocumented folks, majority of which are Haitian and are assumed to be dark-skinned. This supports Bobea’s (2011) point that police persecute members of marginalized communities and are perhaps engaging in racial profiling, making queer people of color even more vulnerable. While this young man was released from jail within two hours, he recalls that there were several others still there in similar situations as him, confirming that this is not an isolated incident.

In in-person protests planned by RD Es De Todes along with other organizations against the Penal Code, queer folks provide testimony of their fears surrounding being queer in their country and how these fears prevent them from living authentically. Monica, a DominicanTaiwanese activist who goes by @LaMenteOpen on social media, attended one of the protests and read a speech on behalf a 24-year-old closeted queer woman, which was filmed and posted on the Instagram page. The woman expressed her fear of coming out, being subjected to violence, and being rejected by her family – which is in fact the reason she did not show up to the protest and share her story herself. This testimony, along with the examples of state violence detailed above, speak to Dominican queer people’s sense of and actual safety and vulnerability at the hands of the state and in their daily lives. It appears that Dominican society is structured in a way that people’s queerness, in addition to other facets of their identity that make them “different”, make it unsafe for them to live openly and authentically.

D. RD is for Everyone: Building Community and Fighting for Inclusion

RD Es De Todes’ vision is “to be a participatory and collaborative group of reference in decision-making spaces for the visibility and inclusion of people’s rights in the laws and public policies of the Dominican Republic”. Created in direct response to the drafting of the new exclusionary Penal Code, the collective seeks to act as representation for the interests of queer people since those in elected positions are not fulfilling that role. Although there are several key organizers behind the scenes, running the Instagram account and holding meetings, they utilize social media to garner support and invite anyone who is interested to have a voice in the conversation and a role in the decision-making process of the collective. The democratic nature of the collective, as well as their active presence on social media, makes it representative of the current situation, opinions, and activities of queer Dominicans in opposition to the approval of the Penal Code.

RD Es De Todes focuses on including all differences from their language norms and politics, by using the gender neutral ‘todes’ in their name and in everyday conversations to center non-binary people. The collective also fights to expand definitions of hate crimes and decriminalize abortion for people who do not have access to resources or are targeted for their race and/or nonnormative gender identity. In doing so, they reject the idea that heterosexuality is “the central ‘dividing line’ between those who would be dominant and those who are oppressed.”xix Like Cohen, RD Es De Todes suggests that organizing should be rooted “in our shared marginal relationship to dominant power which normalizes, legitimizes, and privileges,”xx and perhaps that identity categories must be destabilizedxxi to include a more expansive definition of queerness.

The collective’s use of social media platforms, particularly Instagram and Twitter, has allowed them to challenge socially accepted and legitimized views about the current situation concerning queer people, such as that discrimination doesn’t exist or that if it does, it is morally correct. Using posts to show examples of how LGBTQ+ people are mistreated in the country and label them as unacceptable, the collective challenges socially accepted and legitimized views. This consequently generates a new understanding of the proposed law to exempt people from being persecuted if they discriminate against others on the basis of their moral, ethical, and religious beliefs on non-normative sexual orientations and gender identities. By demonstrating how these instances are unacceptable, the status of queer people and social practice of discriminating against them “is reframed as inexcusable, immoral, or unjust.”xxii Moreover, it shows discrimination and violence is indeed a very real and pervasive social problem in Dominican society. This is a “fairly self-contained but substantial change in the way a particular domain of life is framed,”xxiii especially how the mistreatment of queer people is viewed. However, RD Es De Todes is not working to transform the structures that enable this oppression. While listening in on a Zoom meeting where leaders of RD Es De Todes and other organizations were planning their next protest, I witnessed an exchange between a member of RD Es De Todes and one of the leaders of a feminist group that revealed the politics they are taking up. The member was suggesting taking a more forceful and aggressive method of protest, feeling frustrated with the peaceful demonstrations the leaders were interested in. The leader responded by bringing up the point that the goal is to negotiate with Congress – she said, “We’re not talking about revolution, we’re talking about reform”. Her argument was that if they want to help people with multiple policies, they cannot attack those in power directly because they want to ensure those same people remain willing to negotiate with them. This exchange illustrates the collective’s focus on the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in Dominican society, to make it a place where queer people can feel safe and live healthy and full lives. Their commitment to working with, and not against, the Dominican Government to reform the laws and guarantee the rights of vulnerable populations does not nullify the revolutionary power of the collective. Through their Instagram account, RD Es De Todes keeps the public updated on the Penal Code, advertises workshops for how to safely come out of the closet and self-care, organizes both virtual and in-person protests, and mobilizes folks to show up in any way they can. Folks who are closeted or concerned about their safety can anonymously participate on social media and contribute to the change they want to see. At protests, they have performers such as drag queens and queer reggaeton artists such as Tokischa and provide space for people to give testimony about their experiences as a queer person in the country through Instagram. Although their focus on reform makes these moments of visibility “hard to recognize as worldmaking…[,understanding] them only as a self-expression or as a demand for recognition would be to misrecognize the fundamentally unequal material conditions whereby the institutions of social reproduction are coupled to the forms of hetero culture.” (Berlant & Warner, 561). As of right now, RD Es De Todes’ efforts may be focused on immediate reform and relief, but they are simultaneously building a world where queer people exist publicly, without shame or fear.

Conclusion

In this paper, I examine how the Dominican Government, Catholic Church, queer individuals, and the Dominican LGBTQ+ social movement perceive queerness, how this affects the safety of queer people, as well as what they imagine the future should be like for queer Dominicans living on the island. In support of previous research, I find that repressive laws, particularly anti-LGBT policies, are indeed heavily enforced and color the experiences of queer folks in a negative way. The Dominican Government and Catholic Church are outwardly and tangibly homophobic, forming the basis of a culture that puts queer people’s physical and emotional wellbeing at risk. This research is limited by its method – time constraints did not allow for the recruitment of participants for an interview study; thus, no complete first-hand accounts of queer individuals were included. The data of this study is constrained to the information posted online by those who have access to the internet and smartphones or computers, which excludes folks living in underserved or rural communities, particularly undocumented folks of Haitian ancestry living in the D.R. Nevertheless, the relatively accessible nature of social media allowed for the voices of a diverse group of queer people and organizers to be heard and centered in my results. Overall, my research provides insight into mainstream attitudes towards queerness in the Dominican Republic and how they are impacting the safety and livelihood of LGBTQ+ people. From the perspective of Dominican law, religious institutions, and mainstream society, gendered individuals and their sexuality are only legitimate if their identities and behaviors prescribe to white supremacist, patriarchal, and heteronormative standards. By implementing exclusionary policies along the lines of gender and sexuality in a supposedly ‘progressive’ Penal Code that will be valid for many years to come if approved, the Dominican government attempts to illegitimate and erase the existence of increasingly visible marginalized peoples in the public sphere. This creates a hostile and often unsafe environment for queer people, racialized individuals, disabled people, women, and poor people. However, the presence of RD Es De Todes, alongside organizations fighting for reproductive rights and against violence, are creating spaces where queer people feel safe and seen and are encouraging queer people to report and speak up against homophobic and transphobic violence.

This study is useful in outlining the areas of life in which queer Dominicans require more support to thrive, specifically mental health, sex education, labor protections, and legal protections more generally. Although the Penal Code was officially rejected on December 16, 2021, my findings demonstrate that these laws and mainstream attitudes are indeed repressive and detrimental to the lives of queer people. Moreover, it calls attention to the fundamentally problematic relationship between the Dominican Government and Catholic Church, suggesting that a separation of church and state is not only beneficial but crucial to the improvement of the conditions of the LGBTQ community. There is still much to explore in terms of how exactly RD

Es De Todes is building coalitions and knowledge, what other queer Dominican collectives are doing, and the consequences on the safety and livelihood of queer people because of this new movement. Future studies could further investigate the impact of conversations about and the development of the Penal Code’s discrimination, hate crime, and abortion laws on the queer community and Dominican society more broadly.

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