A story as a counter point: In my field of study there were several people with reputations for having had wacky ideas or following rabbit holes too far and publishing obtuse conclusions. When these people gave talks you could see most of the audience pre-judging their current presentation based on a filter put in place from previous or concurrent unpopular work.

What I always noticed was that my advisor, who is rather famous in our niche of science, never dismissed a person for their history or pet interpretations. He would listen to everyone equally and dismiss ideas or concepts as they were presented. Because of this he was able to glean amazing insight from people that were outright dismissed by almost everyone else in the field.

Everyone can be put in one conceptual box, but all of us also pour over into others. You are not so busy that you can't evaluate people based on their current and real merit, instead of racial profiling or dismissing people that made a mistake in the past.

tldr; your false filters are holding you back.