this reminds me of a horrible experience I had reading a book; for several pages, the narrator's gender was not mentioned, and I unwittingly constructed a gender. When it became apparent I was wrong, I had a hard time going forward with the plot because all my mental constructions were failing me.
That's nothing. Once I totally mistook a narrator's species. I thought he was a dog, but then it turned out he was a human and the cat's name was Cat. The cat's name was what confused me.