Passing leads to acceptance

I had an interesting day today at Chuck E Cheese. We went to a birthday
for the 7 year old daughter of friends of ours. Our friends know and
accept Heather and have no issue with it at all. Since I was in a
Heather mood and it was due to hit 100+ today I wore a nice black &
white sun dress and flat sandals for the occasion. We were the first
ones there and our friends arrived a few minutes after us. My friend
(guy) walks over to me and says "Hey Sister" and gives me a hug. His
normal greeting is "Hey bro" when it's a Joe day, so this was expected. A short while later his parents arrived. Now, his parents met us last
year for the same occasion, but it was a Joe day then. His mom comes
over next to me and introduces herself. I figured she just didn't
remember me from last year. I was wrong. I introduced myself as Heather
and she commented that it'd been a few years since she saw me last and
I'd changed a bit (I found out later she confused me with another
Heather). I replied "well, last year I wasn't quite dressed like this."
She looked at me kind of funny and then the light bulb went on. She said
"You're Joe." I told her that I was. She made a comment that I wasn't
quite so fully dressed "like this" last year. I told her I tended to go
androgynous most of the time. She then commented that I looked good as a
woman.

After the party we went back to the grandparents place to open presents
since the birthday girl wanted our daughter to come over for a bit and
it was only a few miles away. Everyone was fine with how I was dressed.
I know grandpa knew who I was and my appearance didn't phase him in the
least. We had a bit of conversation while we were there. Grandma
referred to me as Joe but the whole time I could see it was not big deal
to her either. I would call this passing that turned to acceptance since
I believe she saw me as a woman until I told her who I really was.