I met my now partner (who I'm going to refer with femenin and masculine pronouns) in april 2023 online (but we met for people we knew in real life) and stay as part of the same friend group but not super close until november 2024 when she send me a text congratulating me for something and we never stoped talking after that.
I developed romantic feelings pretty fast and, as a biromantic woman, it was clear it didn't felt like when I had crushes with men before. I felt so prejudiced because I kept thinking there was no way he was a man. So I asked her to met in person and stalked her instagram beforehand, where I found an old post where he used a femenine gender marker to refer to himself (we are not native english speakers, and the post was in our native lenguage), and some pronouns that are used for objects with femenine, masculin and neutral gender markers in her bio.
So, we finally met in person and talked for four hours straight. At that time he confirmed what I suspected, he wasn't a cis man, and not no binary, but also didn't want to call herself a trans woman because she didn't want to transition because a mix of health problems, the knowledge that her family would not be supportive and all the shit that trans (but specially trans women) deal. When I asked about her prefered pronouns he told me to use both (masculine and femenine), but to be honest I have traid to avoid any gender marker when talking with her.
The thing is, she only talks in masculine about herself, and most of the time looks confortable being percived as a man. It has got to the point where sometimes I feel like it was all in my imagination. But then he will say the most dysphoric coment ever and I never know how to react.
Like, the day she met my best friend there was a point when we started complaining about the cishet male side of fandoms and my partner freaked out and tried to convince us that he is not in that side of the fandoms and my first reaction would be saying "nobody thinks you are", but I didn't knew if I can because I don't know if I was alowed to insinuate that I don't think of her as a man infront of other people.
She complains about her height, the way that her body reacts with the flu, her body hair, her lack of ability to see ghosts (aparently all his afab family members have it), etc. because are things that make him feel like a man, but I never know if I'm alowed to tell her that none of that make her a man. Because, again, she doesn't have plans of transitioning.
In our relationship it is pretty clear there is no man. He still tooks a more masculine role in the things related tu public transportation (waiting for my bus with me and making sure I travel less far to see each other [we are middle distances]), but in most of the things I took the more masculine role. It feels super safic, but I don't know if I'm alowed to call our relationship safic.
She dedicated a Girl in Red song to me, and send me a vídeo of paintings of old ladies being happy together and tell me "us in the future, please"; but also has told me about how proud he is to call himself my boyfriend, and how much he wants to be a good father to our hipitetic future child.
Every time I see a video of a trans woman talking about how she wish she started her transition earlier I feel the impulse of trying to push her to transition. But, who I am to do that? Is her gender at the end of the day.
I think I would be more in peace if he just says "I'm a closseted trans woman" and I knew to refer to her in femenine when we are alone. But his aproach is more like "I'm a man that hates being a man and really really really wants to be a woman". And that makes me crazy, because I don't want to validate that.
I love her, I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him not mater their gender. So I think I should just let her be, but is hard not knowing how to.
Any advice would be appreciated.