QUEER WORD
HOW CAN A NUMBER BE QUEER?

Ok, ok. I know what you’re thinking. How can a number be queer?

And, well, you’ve kind of got a point. But, in case you hadn’t noticed, we live in a world where pretty much anything can be queer. 

Disco balls? Queer.

Rainbows? Obviously queer.

Unicorns? Also queer.

So if refracting light, mythical creatures, and inanimate objects can all end up with queer associations, why not numbers too?

In different countries and cultures, certain numbers have become associated with queerness. Sometimes this is because of old laws, sometimes because of slang, jokes, or peculiar cultural codes. Let’s take a look at a few of them. 

24 (Brazil)

In Brazil, 24 is heavily associated with homosexuality because of the illegal lottery game Jogo do Bicho, in which the number 24 corresponds to the deer (veado). That matters because veado sounds very similar to viado, a Portuguese slur for a gay man.

The association became so strong that, for years, many Brazilian footballers avoided wearing the number 24 shirt for fear of being labelled gay. Today, the number remains one of the strangest and most culturally specific examples of a queer numerical code.

175 (Germany)

This refers to Paragraph 175, the section of the German Criminal Code that criminalised sex between men from 1871 until it was finally repealed in 1994. Under the Nazis, more than 50,000 men were convicted under the law, and many were sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to wear the pink triangle.

Today, 175 remains a stark historical symbol of anti-gay persecution in Germany.

41 (Mexico)

In Mexico, 41 became a queer taboo after a notorious 1901 police raid on a private dance in Mexico City, where dozens of men were found dancing together, around half of them in drag.

Official reports claimed that 41 men were arrested, though popular legend holds that there were actually 42 — and that the missing man, Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, the son-in-law of President Porfirio Díaz, was quietly allowed to escape. The scandal made 41 a byword for male homosexuality in Mexico, and for decades the number was avoided in places like army battalions, hotel rooms, and even birthday celebrations.

Today, many LGBTQ+ Mexicans have reclaimed 41 as a symbol of visibility, defiance, and queer history.

377 (India / former British colonies)

This refers to Section 377, a colonial-era law first introduced under British rule in 1860, which criminalised “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”

In India, the law was used for more than 150 years to harass and criminalise queer people, especially gay men, before it was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in 2018. Because of that long history, 377 became a powerful rallying cry for activists and remains one of the clearest examples of a number becoming shorthand for anti-queer repression — and for the struggle against it.

2S (Canada / Indigenous North America)

2S is slightly different from the other entries here, because it is not really a coded number or slang reference. Instead, it is a modern abbreviation for Two-Spirit, a term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe culturally specific gender and spiritual roles within their communities.

In Canada especially, 2S is often placed at the front of the acronym 2SLGBTQ+ to recognise Indigenous people as the first queer communities on the land. So while it is not a taboo number in the same way as 24 or 41, it is still an important example of a number taking on a distinctly queer meaning.

6 (Global / historical)

The number 6 is associated with the Kinsey Scale, a mid-20th-century tool used to describe sexual orientation on a scale from 0 to 6. On that scale, 0 meant exclusively heterosexual and 6 meant exclusively homosexual.

Although the Kinsey Scale is now often seen as overly simplistic, it was hugely influential at the time, and identifying as a “6” gave some queer people a way to describe themselves before modern identity language became more widely available. In that sense, 6 became a kind of early numerical shorthand for being gay.