A person's trustworthiness has always been based more on perception though, even if you were familiar with more of their history - that's how you end up with me

A person's trustworthiness has always been based more on perception though, even if you were familiar with more of their history - that's how you end up with members of a community who are perfectly kind people but are ostracized because they're perceived as strange and untrustworthy in some way; it's also how you end up with members of a community who have demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness continuing to be trusted, because they can appear trustworthy and persuade others to trust them despite the prior evidence.