Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) effeminate, weak; the subject may or may not be actually homosexual.

1972		Overland L-LVI 20/2: If you stand by the wayside like a forgotten umbrella, making small poofterish movements with your little finger [etc.].
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 30: That flaming red pullover and poofta-ish chocolate-brown neckscarf of his.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 62: Customers [...] would have once thought it impossibly juvenile or ‘poofterish’ to order anything lighter than beer.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 115: As an overall description of those things the Lingoist finds beyond the pale, the catch-alls poofterism and poofterish are available.
2002		Bainham & Richards Body lore and laws 97: ‘Looking’ [i.e. at other men’s genitals] is described as furtive and is discouraged as ‘poofterish’ or ‘perverted’.

homosexuality.

1971		F.J. Hardy Outcasts of Foolgarah 170: [H]e had never fallen into the hands of two human monstrosities like Sodomy and Gomorrah, so called by the wags [...] because of their propensity to poofterism and leadership of the queer quarter of the prison staff.
1984		Flame : a Life on the Game 62: I played on my gayness. If anyone accused me of what they called ‘poufterism’, I’d say : ‘Do you think so?’.
1988		Age (Melbourne) 28 Apr. 37/1: We Australians have got a social conscience [...] Most of the shows I have seen have tackled king-size [...] problems such as [...] turps-nudging, poofterism and pillow-biting.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 115: As an overall description of those things the Lingoist finds beyond the pale, the catch-alls poofterism and poofterish are available.
2006		K. Gee Comrade Roberts 82: To the more resentful comrades, Jim’s easy elegance was a sure sign of poofterism, of the love that dared not speak its name.

(Aus.) one who beats up homosexuals.

1974		N. Phillipson As Other Men 143: The sergeant had that sort of look about him. The look of a confirmed poofter-basher [AND].
1992		N. Miller Out in the World 260: Recently, at a Melbourne beat, a gay man attacked a poofter-basher with a bicycle lock; two ‘thugs’ had invaded Porter Street and were beaten up.
2008		P. Robinson Changing World of Gay Men 195: A ‘poofter basher’ is a person who, usually in the company of others like him, seeks out gay men in isolation and attacks them physically and violently.

either lit. or fig. attacking homosexuals.

1974		D. Altman Homosexual, Oppression and Liberation 48: Beating up queers, or as it is known in Australia, ‘poofter bashing’ is a common way for some men to assert their masculinity.
1980		(ref. to 1970s) B. Hornadge Aus. Slanguage (1989) 264: Poofter Bashing became an accepted after-dark Australian (male) pastime.
1989		R.G. Barratt ‘Poofs on Parade’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Oh, and if any queens read this and claim I’m poofter bashing, check out one of the blokes I dedicated my latest book to.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 115: poofter [...] has been used with wild abandon in all sorts of creative combinations, such as [...] that unhappy proof of our inability to cope with difference, poofter-bashing.
2003		Donaldson & Tomsen Male Trouble 24: Make no mistake — ‘poofter- bashing’ is sexual violence.

a gay bar, pub, or club.

1984

P. Corris ‘Marriages Are Made in Heaven’ in Heroin Annie [ebook] There was a pub he used to call his local [...] Course this is a few years back, could be a poofter palace now for all I know.

1. a procurer for male homosexuals; thus poofter-rorting n.

1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 123: A procurer for homosexuals is known as a poofter rorter.
1959		Baker Drum.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 115: poofter [...] has been used with wild abandon in all sorts of creative combinations, such as [...] poofter-rorting to describe homosexual procuring.

2. one who beats up homosexuals.

1967		‘The Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxviii 10/2: poofter rorter: One who preys on homosexuals.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 39: Poofter Rorter Robber of homosexuals.
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 69: Partridge [...] notes poof-rorting as 1920s cant for ‘robbing male prostitutes with violence’ [...] Poofter rorters, [Houldbrok 2005] suggests, [...] ‘picked up men whom they later robbed, assaulted, or blackmailed, often after sex, or within an ongoing relationship’.

3. (N.Z. und.) a gay version of the Murphy (Game), the n. (1)

2010

W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 69: Poofter rorting had three quite different meanings in New Zealand in the middle decades of last century. First, it described a prostitute who met clients in or around a beat, then took them to a lonely or secluded place and robbed or ‘bashed’ them.