Leo Rosten wrote “The Joys of Yiddish” in 1968. It is a dictionary of Yiddish words.
The definition of faygeleh is:
- little bird
- a girls name
- a dear little, sweet little,tiny, helpless, innocent child.
caution: use faygeleh for a little girl, not for a little boy,
because faygeleh also means: - Homosexual. Quite common (the word, not the libidinal arrangement)
in the American-Jewish vernacular. A synonym for the English “fairy” or “fag”.
Jews use faygeleh as a discreet way of describing a homosexual - especially
where they might be overheard.
So - yes, faygeleh has been in use as a term for male homosexual for a long time.