@jeeny Said it just takes one to know one...you can't distinguish a woman if she's a lesbian or not just on her looks..there's lesbians people who wear make up, dress like a straight girl. there's some characteristics of lesbians : butch - lesbians who looks like guys, with short hair, dress like a guy and some tend to put vest on their chest just to make sure their breast won't bulge up. femme - lesbians who looks like a straight women, wears make up, dress like a straight, but is really interested with same sex. transgender - lesbians who thinks that they men trapped in a women's body..
To clarify, transgender is not a sexual orientation. A transgendered person is someone who believes that they were born as the wrong sex, and they can be straight, gay, bi or whatever. A transgendered female to male is NOT a lesbian (lesbians are, in general, female.)
Anyway, clear-cut signs that a woman is gay... labrys hanging across her chest??? short fingernails... shirt that says "I kiss girls"? There aren't really any that describe all lesbians, because lesbians are so different from each other. There are more categories than just butch and femme (and lipstick lesbian is not another word for femme) - butch=very masculine, interested in femmes; femme=feminine, interested in butch; lipstick=feminine interested in other feminine women; granola=health-freak type of lesbian; flannel-shirt=nature/rejecting the butch-femme classifications; etc, etc... Though most of us just are who we are, and don't need labels.