I certainly understand the special circumstances. It’s just that I usually recommend installing the latest version, given that each new Fedora release reaches EOF within 13-14 months from release date, after which it won’t receive updates.
Instead of Automatic partitioning, you could also try entering the Custom partitioning option, and from there choose Automatic allocation (or similar), then check if you receive the same error message.
If doable, it’s worth trying.