Is "fagela" real Yiddish?

Leo Rosten wrote “The Joys of Yiddish” in 1968. It is a dictionary of Yiddish words.

The definition of faygeleh is:

  1. little bird
  2. a girls name
  3. 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:
  4. 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.