The World's Most Homophobic Number?

It’s not a pleasant note to begin the New Year with, but 2024 may be regarded by some as a year to avoid because the number 24 is considered as unlucky as the number 13, particularly in Brazil. The only difference is that 24’s reputation stems from its association with homosexuality. Is it the world’s most homophobic number?

So many numbers are considered as either lucky of unlucky. Most of these beliefs are based on superstition or pseudo-numerology.

We don’t have to go that far back to discover why. To 1892, in fact. That’s within the lifetimes of two of my grandparents, both of whom lived into the 1980s. The story behind it involves a monkey farm, a zoo, and a lottery.

We’ll start with the monkey farm. Despite first impressions, the monkey farm, or the Fazenda do Macacos, was a complex of fruit orchards, gardens and sugar cane plantations in Rio de Janeiro. Once owned by the Franciscans, it got its name because it was over-run by monkeys in the harvesting season, all eager to snatch some fresh fruit.

The Fazenda passed from the Franciscans to the Portuguese crown, of which Brazil was still then a colony, in the 1750s. After independence in 1825 the first Emperor of Brazil, as the King of Portugal became, visited the Fazenda from Portugal for hunting and riding. After several years the emperor stopped visiting Rio and the Fazenda began to be neglected. By the 1870s the Rio municipal authorities were developing the area around the Fazenda. João Batista Viana Drummond, Baron Drummond (1825-1897) bought the Fazenda in 1872 and decided to create Rio’s first zoo on the site in 1888.

Entry to the zoo was free, but the baron received tax rebates and subsidies from the city council. This financial arrangement soon vanished the following year when Brazil became a republic. Income and attendance at the zoo fell, so in 1892 Baron Drummond came up with a lottery to raise funds, basing it on animals in his zoo.

The lottery was called the Jogo do Bicho, or Game of Beasts. Everyone visiting the zoo could buy a ticket upon which were printed the name of one of 25 different animals in the zoo. At the start of each day the baron would chose which animal would be the winning ticket. A picture of the chosen animal was revealed later that day, and holders of the winning tickets won the prize money. The winning animal was publicised in the Rio newsagents.

Very soon people were asking for tickets of their favourite or lucky animals. Then people began buying tickets without entering the zoo, and the whole thing blew up into a big gambling racket. Within four years some people were buying tickets in bulk, and these “intermediaries” began re-selling them on the streets for a profit. The lottery gradually evolved. Numbers were allotted to each of the 25 animals, and soon people began betting on their favourite number as well. Bets were taken in newspaper kiosks, on street corners and anywhere the “intermediaries” could attract custom.

By this time Baron Drummond was dead, and most of the money from ticket sales that should have gone to the zoo was going into the pockets of the “intermediaries”. In the 1890s the Brazilian government tried to crack down of gambling, but the Jogo do Bicho survived because police and local authorities turned a blind eye, and were probably being bribed. Officially the Jogo do Bicho was banned in 1946, but it still survives as an underground lottery, which everyone, including the government, knows about.

So, why did the number 24 in the Jogo do Bicho lottery become associated with the gay community and become so homophobic? It’s all about one of those animals featured on the tickets, specifically the animal that was numbered 24, a deer. In Portuguese this animal is called “veado”. In the mid-20th century the word “veado” began to be used as a derogatory term for gay men in Brazil, first appearing in print in 1956. Because the Jogo do Bicho was such a huge part of Brazilian culture, it wasn’t long before people were linking the number 24 with homosexuality purely because it was the number assigned to a deer on the lottery ticket.

The link between 24 and the deer may even have been a misunderstanding of the word “veado”, because there is another theory that says that “veado” is short for “transviado”, which means “deviant” or “immoral”. There may be no connection to a deer at all. But this hasn’t stopped 24 from being regarded as both unlucky, and unmanly. In Brazilian sport there are many sportsmen who refuse to play in a team (e.g in football) if their shirt number is 24. There have been a few cases in recent years of male footballers defiantly wearing 24 on their shirt, regardless of the homophobic abuse they receive from fans during a match because of it. Other people renumber their house if it is number 24, changing it 23.5. There are people who would prefer not to celebrate their 24th birthday, and celebrate being 23+1 instead. There’s even 23+1 birthday candles (pictured above).

Even though gambling in Brazil is illegal (mainly applying to casinos) the Jogo do Bicho still exists, though its 20th century history was polluted by the involvement of crime gangs and money laundering. But two surprising outcomes of their involvement is the formation of local football (soccer) clubs, and the growth of the carnival parade culture in Brazil.

Although crime gangs weren’t the only influence on carnival culture, the money they accumulated through their use of “intermediaries” to sell Jogo do Bicho tickets at a profit went towards keeping the local citizens on their side, so to speak, without having to make overt threats. To do this, the crime bosses gave money to local communities to set up football clubs (and we know how much Brazilians love their football) and samba dance schools (samba being a vital part of the carnival culture, which the Brazilians love just as equally). This was more effective in the larger Brazilian cities. It could be claimed that the famous carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo only became so big through the money given by crime gangs.

Back to the number 24 and homosexuality. Just like the Nazi pink triangle the lgbt+ community has begun to “reclaim” the number 24 and use it to help the cause of democracy. This was seen during Brazil’s municipal elections in 2012 when over 100 lgbt+ candidates stood for election. All candidates receive an official electoral number, without which they could not legally stand for election. Many of the lgbt+ candidates included the number 24 in their electoral number.

The 2012 election saw the largest ever number of lgbt+ candidates in municipal election in Brazil up to that time. According to Associação Brasileira de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais (ABGLT), a leading lgbt+ rights organisation in Brazil, there were only 78 in the previous election in 2008.

One of the 2012 candidates was Bia Ifran Oliveira (1969-2019), a transgender candidate for the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party) in the election to the city council of São Borja, her home city in the southernmost province of Brazil. The 2012 election was taking place several years before Brazil passed the law recognising non-reassigned transgender individuals’ right to legally change their gender on their birth certificates, so Bia was registered as a male candidate.

Bia was a hairdresser and stylist as a profession and was well-known figure in São Borja. She was president of the city’s prestigious samba school (not founded by Jogo do Bicho crime gangs as far as I can discover), which is also one of the biggest participants in the city’s annual carnival parade. Bia was also an lgbt+ activist. She was the first transwoman to run for municipal election for the Partido dos Trabalhadores. Below is one of her campaign adverts in which you can see her election number containing 24. In the election Bia won 339 votes, placing her 35th, which isn’t bad when you consider that she was up against 102 other candidates.

It remains to be seen whether the stigma attached to 24 in Brazil will finally disappear during 2024. After all, it’s the first time that the number has been part of the year number since it became a derogatory term. Brazil is one of those contradictory places – you hear so much about homophobia and transgender murders, yet at the end 2023 Brazil was placed higher than the UK and the USA in many equality indexes (I’ve never understood the USA’s self-declared place as a champion of lgbt rights anyway). Just in case you question Brazil’s placing, you can do what I did and look online (organisations which publish figures include the UN, World Population Review, Human Rights Campaign, Amnesty International, Equaldex, and many more).

But let’s forget about the stigma and homophobia of the number 24 and follow the example of Brazil’s lgbt candidates in 2012 and make 2024 the year in which we can all show that it is a year of hope, acceptance and enlightenment for all communities of every race, gender, politics, faith, non-faith, age, ability, culture, and opinion.