🔢 Why the number 24 is 'gay' in Brazil 🔢

QUEER WORD
24

What It Means:

A derogatory homophobic term in Brazil that has come to be used as shorthand for ‘gay’.

Let’s Use It In A Sentence:

The hotel receptionist struggled not to roll her eyes when Carlos politely asked if his room could be changed from 24 to another number.

So, What’s This All About?

I'm pretty sure that if you google 'fragile masculinity' in Portuguese, this is the image that appears. Because how else could you explain something so absurd?

Yup. The number 24 is apparently 'gay'.

And if you're scratching your head right now, confused by how this all came to be, I'm sorry to say the explanation does little to help it make sense.

Shall we investigate anyway?

The Beginning

Our story starts all the way back in 1892, when the founder of Brazil's very first zoo, Baron João Batista Viana Drummond, needed a quick way to fix his troubled finances. And what's an easier way to make money than setting up a gambling racket?

João introduced a lottery called ‘o jogo do bicho’ (or, in English, ‘the animal game’).

When visitors arrived at the zoo, they were given an animal figurine. Each figurine was assigned a different number from 1 to 25. At the end of the day there would be a prize draw, with cash awarded to anyone holding that day's winning animal.

The game quickly became wildly popular, and copycat versions popped up all over the country. There's actually a fascinating history about how ‘jogo do bicho’ became embedded in Brazilian culture, evolved into organised crime networks, and continues to operate illegally to this day.

But for now, let's not lose focus on what we’re here to explore - the number 24 (or, for our more fragile readers, 23 + 1).

The Woodland Creature

The animal assigned to the number 24 in the game was the ‘veado’ (or, in English, the deer).

The word for deer also happens to be a well-used homophobic slur in Brazil.

And, that's pretty much it. That's what tainted the number 24 for heterosexual men throughout Brazil.

So superstitious (or insecure, or ridiculous, or catastrophically fragile) are some Brazilian men that they refuse to sit in the 24th row on a plane, rent an apartment numbered 24, or, you know, acknowledge their own age when they happen to be 24 years old.

The Absurdity Doesn’t Stop There

So deep-seated is this homophobia that it's almost impossible to find a professional footballer in Brazil wearing the number 24 on their jumper.

In the rare cases where it does happen, players experience homophobic chants from supporters, ostracism from teammates, and a generally miserable time.

Though, it’s worth saying, one incident in the early 2020s seems to have shifted the conversation slightly. When Colombian player Víctor Cantillo transferred to Corinthians, he asked to keep wearing number 24, the number that he'd worn at his old club.

Of course, being from another country, he didn't have all the cultural baggage around it. But others in the team certainly did. The team's director refused to let him have the number, and was caught on camera saying dismissively ‘twenty-four here, no’.

The clip went on to trigger a (long overdue) national conversation about how utterly ridiculous this all was. And slowly (very slowly, mind you) inroads are starting to be made.

Maybe one day the number 24 will just mean... 24?

But until then, I’m curious what you think is really behind this kind of bizarre behaviour… homophobia, fragile masculinity, or just general human ridiculousness?

Answer the poll below and let me know.