Remarkably, the article does not refer to the boyfriend as a woman nor use female pronouns despite him declaring himself to be trans.

It is acceptable to "misgender" someone if it's an article about how he made a woman feel bad. Just like it is acceptable for news articles to hide the fact that a crime suspect is trans. I've even seen a recent article refer to a criminal as "a crossdressing man" (when I pointed it out, some trans activist replied saying "he isn't trans").