Irene Montero is preparing her candidacy for the upcoming general elections and has just appeared on “Two Gays Without a Hetero,” the podcast hosted by Xabi Zubillaga and Mario Temiño. The show, focused on conversations about politics and the LGBTQ+ community, also features in this episode Estrella Xtravaganza, who has recently become an international artist after her appearance on ‘Drag Race Down Under vs The World’.
One of the topics that comes up during the chat (starting at 35:32) is the controversy surrounding Lady Gaga and surrogacy. They ask Montero how she views famous figures who have been so close to the LGBTQ+ community suddenly making headlines for something like this. “It has been very painful.” Gaga, she says, is “a reference for many queer, LGBTQ, feminist, avant-garde people.”
Montero explains that she is “deeply opposed to reproductive exploitation” and that what bothers her especially is that this issue is framed as something related to LGBTQ+ people, when, in her view, most of those who turn to surrogacy are heterosexual couples with a lot of money. For Montero, the problem lies in a system where “it seems that everything is purchasable” and where women’s bodies can end up being “mistreated, violated and bought.”
The former Minister of Equality also recalls that during her time in government, surrogacy was recognized as a form of violence against women in reproduction. She shares her own experience as a mother of two premature babies: “A pregnancy can go well or it can go poorly. I have been a mother to two premature children and I gave birth at 25 weeks.” She also criticizes the conditions that can appear in these contracts, from what the gestational carrier can eat to where she can live, her routines, or even when she can go to bed.
Estrella Xtravaganza agrees with the critique and notes that Gaga “is American” and that in the United States the idea has become normalized that money can give access to a baby. She also points out that just because an artist has done many things well does not mean she cannot be criticized when she does something deemed wrong. Montero draws a line here between criticizing and canceling: “You can be critical without needing to cancel.” For her, the focus should be on changing the rules of a system that allows reproduction to become a business: “Not everything has to be governed by business rules, and having a child is not a right.”
