Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US/Can.) a very formal or exclusive tea party; thus, as v., to attend such an event.

1887		Harper’s Mag. Jan. 204/1: A Protestant good cause is to be furthered by a bazar or a ‘pink tea’ .
1892		A.J. Cooper Voice from the South 123: Is not woman’s cause broader, and deeper, and grander, than a blue stocking debate or an aristocratic pink tea?
1900		Land of Sunshine Aug. 152: Markham [is] [...] pink-teaing on thin flattery, instead of Doing Something .
1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ Out for the Coin 27: He had a Kentucky accent that sounded like a pink tea on a moonshiner’s lawn.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 36: Give most Johnnies his pile and [...] [t]hey’d wear out the club window-sills, and take in pink teas, and do the society turn. [Ibid.] 231: I’m holdin’ forth at a pink tea that’s the swellest thing of the kind Primrose Park ever got its eyes on.
1915		Van Loan ‘The Spotted Sheep’ in Taking the Count 116: Don’t stop to shake hands [...] This ain’t no pink tea!
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 186: Hey! there, Reds, step lively, this ain’t no pink tea.
1932		J. Dixon Free To Love 74: ‘Well, for crying out loud!’ he jeered. ‘What do you think this is? A pink tea?’.
1945		(con. WWI) J.P. Marquand ‘Good Morning, Major!’ in Mason Fighting American (1945) 430: We are through with the [...] pink teas and kissing the girls good-bye at those hostess houses.
2000		famous5.org 🌐 Pink Teas were developed as a way for women to gather and discuss various issues including suffrage. Only the organizers of the Pink Teas knew if there would be a formal discussion on strategies to obtain the vote or just pleasant conversation.

2. (US) in fig. use of sense 1, something affected, effeminate.

1913		El Paso Herald 14 May 12/1: Games were no pink tea when you met the Baltimore gang.
1969		R. Starnes Flypaper War 44: ‘It’s never a pink tea. A man has to be tough’.

3. attrib. use of sense 1.

1920		Wash. Times (DC) 31 Oct. 19/2: ‘A pink tea man’ [...] is still the fashionable man of society [...] ‘A pink tea affair’ is still the fashionable affair of High Society.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 90: It certainly makes me tired, after going into a pink-tea joint like Vecchia’s.
1935		A. Wallace ‘Body Ransom’ in Spicy Detective Stories Nov. 🌐 Tonelli’s ain’t no place for no pink tea parties.

4. an effeminate or homosexual man.

1936

W.J. Blackledge Legion of Marching Madmen 108: Pull yourself together, for the love of Mike! [...] Come on, pick ‘em up! Be a soldier and stop slobbering like a pink tea!’.

5. (gay) in specific use of sense 4, an upper-class homosexual, usu. ‘in the closet’ and insulated from active homophobia by social privilege.

1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 44: All the fairies in her town were closet queens or pinkteas.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 48: pink tea (= the after-hours homosexual).