Partner could have been trans ----

She's also prev said that when she was young, in 1960s Ireland with the nuns, she thought she must be a boy (though had never heard of trans) because she knew she liked other girls but couldn't see how that could be possible if she was also a girl.

This is such a brilliant summary of the lesbophobia which i part of the current transactivist thinking. You've described the coercive power of "heteronormativity."

I hope she's OK.

I can hardly start to imagine how unsettling that must be and hope you can make peace with the idea of what might have happened.

It's sounds like you've been on quite a journey of different thoughts unfolding. Maybe this is part of that process where your head is putting some different thoughts in to new places in your head. Running a few "what if" scenarios.

It's quite a change from feeling one way about gender identity to thinking completely differently.

It's a very different scenario but my kids were watching a documentary that they'd seen before on CBBC called My Life. It was an episode about a girl whose mum had "become my Dad now" (i.e. transitioned). When I saw it with them a couple of years ago I thought it was absolutely lovely how everyone seemed so happy and adjusted.

Fast forward to now and it was on again the other day. I had to really hold it together to avoid shouting at the TV about what irresponsible programming it was - it didn't help that one of my daughters has recently been on her own gender questioning journey so I wasn't sure what she was making of it all. So many of the scenes were so contrived - even my other daughter pointed that out. I hadn't really thought about the pain that this little girl had been through, losing her mum in a way that can't really be explained. When she mentioned being teased at school for not having a mum any more, the first time I watched it I thought "of course you've not lost your mum, she's just now your dad but she's still the same person" - in fact this is what her "Dad" told her to cheer her up. The programme had been set up to be all positive and happy so I couldn't really see why it was different once she'd had chance to get used to it all. I think now about what trans widows say about their husbands transitioning and the effect on them and their children... That was smoothed over completely in the programme.

Obviously not the same at all, but having a completely different perspective does change how things are perceived, even if the only person who has changed is you (or me, in the case of me watching the programme). However, a programme is absolutely not the same thing as your gf! Nor is she being irresponsible etc.

It's just that your perspective has had such a monumental shift that it probably does take time to reprocess stuff that seemed totally different when you first knew or heard it.

I would be curious to understand what that exploration would look like, and why not now?

I don’t see why it’s an issue? She doesn’t want to transition now, she’s just saying if she was given that option when she was younger she would have probably considered it?

She’s been honest with you and told you how she feels.

I wanted to be a boy when I was growing up, more so between the age of 7 and 13, I hung out with boys and struggled to fit in with girls. Now as an adult all my friends are male, people have asked me if I am a lesbian 🤔. I am not gay or trans but if I was go in the option growing up I would have probably chosen to be male but I wouldn’t now, I am 100% female and happy with that.

There is nothing to grieve.