I lived a lot of my life as a boy and man (gross), so relationships I had with women were visibly heterosexual in that period.
Nonetheless, because I was so effeminate as a man, I was commonly seen as gay and I often felt like I was not "straight-passing" even though my relationship was viewed as straight, even when I insisted I was straight, etc.
After transitioning, it feels like for the first time my effeminate nature aligned with my perceived female gender, and people no longer perceived me as gay - it's like I became "straight" for the first time in my life.
Simultaneously, my relationship went from straight to gay. When I was visibly trans and not cis-passing, the relationship was obviously "queer" or "gay" to other people, which made my partner very happy (she loves being visibly queer, which is not something I enjoy as much).
Once I started to pass as a cis woman, suddenly our relationship became perceived as platonic - people started asking if we need one or two checks at a restaurant where before they assumed we were together. Even when we are affectionate with one another it seems like people don't assume we are in a romantic relationship. It's like the relationship has become invisible.
I know from communities like /r/reallesbians that we often struggle to be visible to one another (esp. it seems for people to know who is a candidate to date), and people talk about what signals lesbians commonly use to identify to others that they are gay or bi, etc. - so I suspect others might feel the way I do too, it's like society doesn't consider my relationship "valid" anymore.
When I clarify that we are partners, it feels like we are given a second-class designation as a relationship, as though it were a relationship between young people or children. Whereas when we were perceived as straight I felt like we were treated like we were really together, that the relationship was serious.
Been thinking about this, so I thought I'd put it out there. Part of the problem is that I live in a homophobic and conservative place, so I know that doesn't help - does anyone have experiences moving to more liberal places where they felt suddenly like their queer relationship was taken more seriously?
Even when I was visibly trans, I think a lot of people still took our "queer"-visible relationship seriously because they coded it as still a kind of "heterosexual" relationship (between a male and a female). I feel like the cis-passing woman with woman relationship is considered less valid, taken less seriously by comparison.