I do think shoehorning yourself limits your growth, but not like a brick wall more like a bottleneck.

If you only write as a specific sort of woman, or a specific sort of man, or only office romances, or only high school drama, or only dragon slaying muscle monster big dick/vagoo hero person, you're only experiencing a small slice of storytelling.

Halflings are the exception.

Advanced isn't all that big a hurdle.  Someone in Advanced who can write women in fantasy incredibly well may be unable to write men or women in a science fiction setting.  Or they may be able to write men/women in any setting "well" but they may all be gender/setting flipped versions of the exact same character they always write.  However well they may write their one singular character that can get boring quick...but somewhere in the middle it becomes a more subjective quality/quantity question.