STIF

English

Alternative forms

• STIFF

Etymology

Modified acronym of "straight-identified faggot". Punning on the slang sense of stiff, "a conventionalist person".

Noun

STIF (plural STIFs)

1. (dated, gay slang) A gay man seen as exhibiting heterosexual manners or attitudes.
   • 1982 April 24, Michael Rumaker, “Zephyrs”, in Gay Community News, page 5:

     If there's "male hatred' in my book it's directed at those same attitudes in gay males who are […] still permeated with such solipsistic male assumptions, like those of our fathers and forefathers, that the world is for them alone and that it revolves around them, STIFFS, as they were once called early on when the movement had the word "liberation" in it: straight-identified faggots.