It was commonly used to describe someone who was small, weak, and effeminate. Truman Capote (the brilliant author) would have likely been called a pansy many many times. In those days, the closest the public was used to thinking of someone being gay was a man who was either extremely flamboyant (ie Liberace) or small and effeminate (like Capote). Neither was open, it was just assumed and not discussed openly. No one (at that time) would have ever considered someone like Rock Hudson fit the very narrow stereotype of "how gay men appear". So terms like pansy, queer, girly, fruit, and the like were used, in an unkind manner. So calling someone "a pansy" today, is seen by some as a low-level slur implying homosexuality. Another one of the time was "Nancy-Boy". Depending on its use (and I don't know of it ever really being used as a term of endearment), it's an insult. Whether or not the speaker or audience equates it to homosexuality is not the point. It's meant, intended and used as an insult to another. People get lost in definition and semantics over the words used to insult or attack others. It's not the words, their spelling, definition or the choice of a particular word that are the issue, it is the emotion, the dislike, the attack that they carry which is the problem. Taking the terms/words apart is a cheap defense.