The lady vanishes: on never knowing, quite, who is a lesbian

Researchers, like political contestants, have to engage matters of epistemology to frame their claims and their debates. In that sense the emerging consensus between lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) advocates and their political adversaries that it is impossible to recognize lesbians by sight, much less indexically gendered features, is instructive. This article reviews a range of methodological research strategies designed to grapple with the complexities of determining who counts as "lesbian" in different contexts. Those classificatory strategies include working definitions, self-definition, identification of "bias," interpretive embrace of slippery categories, and turning the process of classification into an object of study. After exploring the strengths and shortcomings of each approach, the article argues for a calculus of belonging based on the concept of limit rather than a politics of demarcation.