One can be a good caring father but be sexist at the same time - he can be good and nice until he makes comments about female bodied individuals. Why not? Maybe he only respects his kids but not the others. A father just can't see their kids as sexual objects if he's got a healthy sexuality, otherwise he'd be a deviant, and that'd be a pretty serious issue. Or maybe he just pretends to be macho and sexist when in reality he's not - because he challenges gender roles a lot with his behavior (cooking, doing the dishes, helping my mom with stuff).
It's also possible he somehow feels I'm male but he can't understand how it'd be possible, and that's because he's not aware of what transsexuality really is. I had people tell me they weren't surprised to learn I'm trans because "it's just so obvious you're a guy". The human mind is complex. You can't really know what's in a human being's head until they explicitly tell you, and even in that case, it could still be confusing.