"On that bingo-styled card, the animal in the number 24 spot is a deer, or "veado", which has a reputation in Brazil as feminine or "gay"; "veado" is a gay slur in Portuguese on par with "fa**ot" in English."
"One goes back to the turn of the last century in Brazil, when the founder of the National Zoo, Baron Joao Batista Viana Drummond, had an idea for fundraising at the zoological garden: a lottery called "o jogo do bicho," or "the animal game.""
"The game took off, and imitators turned it into a nationwide "bingo"-style craze. "Jogo do Bicho," or "The Animal Game," became so popular that it was banned as a gambling hazard. That only added to its allure, and the game became a national pastime sponsored by the mafia."
In Brazil, the number 24 carries a homophobic stigma rooted in a century-old lottery game called "Jogo do Bicho" (The Animal Game). Created as a fundraising mechanism at Rio de Janeiro's National Zoo, the game assigned 25 different animal figurines to lottery participants. The animal corresponding to number 24 is a deer, known as "veado" in Portuguese—a term that functions as a gay slur. This association, combined with linguistic elements of the Portuguese phrase "vinte e quatro," has embedded the number with gay connotations in Brazilian culture. The stigma persists today, influencing social attitudes and consumer behavior, as evidenced by a viral meme showing candles packaged with numbers 23 and 1 instead of 24 for straight men's 24th birthdays.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
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