Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a male homosexual; also as adj.

1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 175: Nothing lower than a grass, not even a six and four or a ponce or a ginger beer.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 49: I was well pleased that the team of ginger-beers were copping a deaf-un to us.
1971		T. Lewis Plender [ebook] Some blokes thought it turned a bird on, bringing them in to mingle with the gingers.
1971		J. Jones Rhy. Cockney Sl. 17: Ginger beer – Queer; ‘’e’s a bit ginger’.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 242: Perhaps he was prejudging, but the dead bank man was a stone ginger.
1976		(ref. to 1950s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 194: I went up in front of the personnel manager, who I am sure was a bit of a Ginger.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 64: Like most ginger beers she was frightened, lonely, disillusioned and beset.
1981		P. Wright Cockney Dialect and Sl. 105: ginger (beer) queer.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 464/2: since ca. 1920.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: ginger beer rhym. slang Queer.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 ginger n. a male homosexual.
2003		B. Dark Dirty Cockney Rhy. Sl.
2010		IOL News (Western Cape) 22 Mar. 🌐 He managed to offend the broader homosexual community by describing the Daihatsu Copen as ‘a bit gay’, later compiunding the problem by calling the car ‘ginger beer’.