A Gay Soulard Clap Back at Wannabe Politician Valentina Gomez

By Andrea Arnold On May 16, 2024

So the insufferable, attention-starved Valentina Gomez, who is vying to be Missouri’s next secretary of state, posted a video of herself jogging through historic Soulard in a tactical vest saying, “Don’t be weak and gay.” This stunt sparked global headlines about Soulard being a (shudder) gay-friendly neighborhood.

Explore St. Louis could spend tens of millions on a marketing campaign and not achieve such a feat. You just can’t buy this kind of press.

You really owned us, hon.

🚨Don’t be weak and gay🚨August 6th is the day we take Missouri back from these corrupt politicians. @Cobratate @TateTheTalisman🔥MAGA pic.twitter.com/sKoY650Dmw

— Valentina Gomez (@ValentinaForSOS) May 13, 2024

Nestled just south of Downtown, Soulard is the city’s oldest intact neighborhood, and is sometimes referred to as the French Quarter of St. Louis. Soulardians might be called many things. Gay? Sometimes. But weak? Never. The weak are Gomez’s target audience, who are presumably hunkered down somewhere, anxiously peeking through their blinds at any noise while waiting for the government to come for their guns. By contrast, Soulardians aren’t afraid of shit. They are the honey badgers of urban dwellers.

Days after beloved Bastille bartender Peyton Keene was gunned down on a Soulard sidewalk in 2018, hundreds marched through the streets to mourn him. They did so with musical instruments, decorations and trays of shots for their fellow mourners, but unlike the book-burning, gun-toting, perpetual-trolling xenophobic Gomez, they marched without weapons or body armor. In fact, the day after his murder, Bastille patrons were right back on the sidewalk tables where they’ve always gathered.

As I recall in my book, House of Villadiva, shortly before he was murdered, the gay-as-fuck Keene rushed into danger to help an older woman who tripped while trying to flee violence, and was himself attacked. Soulardians feel certain Keene was killed because he was a witness.

I dunno. That all sounds tougher to me than creating a clickbait troll video for mouth breathers.

Tough is living like a 27-year-old Barbara Clark, who in the 1970s was literally the lone resident for blocks around (sans packs of wild dogs), camping in a cold, leaky, circa 1863 shell of a row house in nearby LaSalle Park she was gut-rehabbing on her own.

Tough is literally tossing belligerent Mardi Gras drunks to the curb, as longtime restaurateur Nadine Soab has been known to do.

Tough is having a gun pulled on you, talking the gunman down, and then calmly resuming your evening — like “Maven of Mardi Gras” Luann Denten.

I hate to give the awful Gomez the attention she so desperately craves, but she unintentionally put us on the map in an enormous way.

So, to the villainous and vacuous Valentina, I propose we keep this symbiotic relationship going a bit longer. Next time, hit up Soulard Market on a Saturday morning. Picture it. Shoppers of every ethnicity and orientation, perusing fresh veggies with a Bloody Mary, while you strut through in a Rambo outfit talking smack. Come on down to our Soulard Pride celebration, or hell, we’ll even give you a float in our massive Mardi Gras parade.

You could create the content your army of trolls loves to watch while they’re cooking meth or removing ticks, while also benefiting local tourism. Unlike the fascinating Soulardians I mentioned above, years from now nobody will be telling heroic stories about you. Nobody will immortalize you in a book, and quite certainly, nobody will find you interesting. Your cheap 15 minutes of fame is almost up, so why not use it to the benefit of all Missourians?

You might drop the “weak” diss though. You could never in a million years achieve the street cred of the typical Soulardian, regardless of how many cringeworthy TikToks you conceive.

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