No, I'd think she'd not be

[mamadeb]

This can be filed under how language has changed since the late 19th C:

"Katy is a nice girl enough," pronounced her mother, "but not of the
sort to attract a gay young man, I should fancy."

From What Katy Did Next.

I'm reading 19th Century women's domestic fiction on Gutenberg just for something to DO.

Comments

[chvickers.livejournal.com]

Two books I have put it significantly earlier than that, but only in New York City and only among certain groups: as early as 1890, "gay" was used as a noun to describe prostitutes, and within ten years it was used exclusively to describe male prostitutes.

The problem with slang before World War I is that it sometimes took years if not decades to make the transition from spoken word to print.