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TheGaygency

Glossary

Flit

Flit is dated, largely historical slang for a gay man, most often used as a contemptuous insult and rarely heard today.

Flit is an older slang term for a gay man, generally aimed at those read as effeminate. Dictionaries mark it as disparaging and offensive, and it belongs mostly to mid-20th-century American vernacular. It could be used as an outside slur or, occasionally, self-referentially within the community, but it has fallen almost entirely out of everyday use for many decades. You are most likely to encounter it now in period fiction, film, or historical writing about gay life rather than in current speech. Because its core sense was contemptuous, it is best understood as a historical artifact of how gay men were talked about, not a term in living use.

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