Well, looking at this from a variety of angles:
The professor's model was viewed through a sociopolitical paradigm, Jenner is viewed through a therapeutic one. It's one thing to say, "Men are biologically better than women at <this> and vice versa," because that information comes off as restrictive and an attempt to limit opportunities for one gender or another. While I was surprised at the heat he got (since data is data), the reality is that the information is used most naturally to limit and resembled information previously used to discriminate against others on the basis of race, etc. Jenner's comments could be generalized to impact everyone, but essentially what is being said is, "I've been fighting this for decades, it doesn't change, evidence at least suggests it is innate, and I need to make this change in order to OPEN my opportunities and become a more EFFECTIVE and happier person." In general, this is the pitch of all the trans stuff -- it's not about limiting opportunities for a particular gender, it's about an individual being able to function in society and have a higher quality of life. Most people are generally amenable to another individual experiencing happiness, if it doesn't affect them personally.
I think Summers deservedly got into trouble, because the entirety of what he said was that men and women have different brains, women perform more poorly at STEM type fields, these two factors are related, and he said in no uncertain terms that social conditioning was the "lesser" element. So women are inferior in a relevant, practical way, because of supposed brain differences which are mostly not acquired by experience but somehow innate.
Anyhow, my issue with what Jenner is saying is that to me, there isn't a way for someone to say what Jenner said, the way Jenner said it, without broader implications about other people which are restrictive.
(So I'll add that's another of the angles here: Broad gender vs single individual -- when you say "Men are worse at <this>" you automatically are generalizing since not all men are likely worse than all women at <this> and you are including half the population. A trans person coming out COULD have broader implications if you want to extrapolate, but typically it's about, "This is me, and here's what I need to do for myself, please accept me." It's the same thing that, when I see you seem to be agendered or indifferent to gender by what you've posted above, although i don't at all understand it and don't have the same perception, I'm inclined to say, "okay, whatever MP needs to be happy and feel at one with himself, sure; I can make space for that in my world.")
But that' not really what was said, was it? I think, basically, there were unspoken, or implicit logical operators in Jenner's (or for that matter, Chelsea Manning's) statements. We specifically have a statement about a male brain vs a female brain tied in with personality traits. It is basically saying "I am X, Y, and Z,
because my identity is actually female,
ergo the female identity is X, Y, and Z". I don't think there's getting around the problem for women who don't share those traits or men who do.
I've sort of been on the end of this, too. I remember reading the account of female to male transsexual and his experience with going through hormone therapy. The experience was described like a transformation into what, frankly, sounded like a carton caricature of a man that I could not possibly identify with, bar fights and all (I wondered if he began wearing tiger skins). This makes no difference to me if this were merely a description of this person's own life, but there was a logic to it, about being a man, about testosterone being this vital element to becoming a man, and those behaviors being the product of this male nature, that makes the comments something I can't ignore. I am biologically a male by any definition known to science, and I must surely have the necessary testosterone levels, so why am I not acting like this? Any man who doesn't share these traits, or any woman who does, is justified in being irritated by comments like this. And unlike the author of the article, I don't claim to represent men in any general way, I'm not more entitled to any sort of position on this as a cisgendered male, but I don't have to be, because the reasoning being used here is simply too categorical to be compatible with my mere existence as a not stereotypical male.
And to be clear, it's not that there's anything special about transsexuals in this regard. Rather, my point is how
not special transsexuals are. This is a very typical kind of mistake that is made be cisgendered who identify with traditional roles all the time. They project their personal experience onto all of humanity, with no consideration of other peoples' lives, and don't even realize. If I were to make a suggestion for a change in language, it would simply be mindfulness about whether or not one's statements sound like statements about the self, or statements about everyone else.
As far as brain stuff goes, we're able to distinguish preexisting brain structures that resemble the opposite gender in the brains of people who identify as trans. Do we know exactly how that works? Do we understand in general how the brain truly works on the miniscule level in any area? Not really. We just know what we target certain areas, certain experiences are impacted.
We also have tested the impact of hormonal washes at various stages of gestation in other species like rats (which have some use simulating humans on certain things), and we know we can change gender role behaviors by hitting the rat with androgens or by removing androgens; physically male rats will behave as females in sex, and vice versa. Rats aren't aware enough to explore trans experience; are they just gay or trans? We'll never know. But obviously there is a mechanism there that can radically shift sexual expression and gendered behaviors like mothering in other species. It doesn't seem odd that the same incidents could create much more complex responses in human beings who have the additional aspect of self-awareness / self-identity that leads us to ask who we are and have a sense of "who we are."
I would point to the Telegraph piece linked in the article. I'm not sure if you read it, I actually read it in its own right when it came out. Basically it's a neurologist making the case against gender essentialism, which is interesting in itself, but she raises a really great point about the famous studies that showed London cab drivers experience substantial, detectable changes in the physiology of their brain simply as the result of being cab drivers. The differences we think if as "big" differences in the male and female brain may not be so big, and may very well be formed by conditioning (and I could go on and on about how difference the day to day experience is for men and women in society). I bring this up just because it leaves us even more confused about what to do with the concept of a transgendered brain. How innate of a thing is that in and of itself? And what parts have to change? How much can match the other sex's brain to create transsexualism without including the other things most life long members of a gender obtain? And of course, if this creates transsexualism post gestation, before adult hormone therapy, what do the hormones do to psychology at that point?
Going back to the female to male individual, I've often thought about something which I know is controversial with trans and trans advocates, but how do I know this person's change in behavior isn't placebo? Is this not the ideal conditioning for a placebo effect? The transsexual individual, like any other person, has gender norms hammered into their head to a degree matched by few other cultural norms, and then on top of that they have their personal condition. They typical identify this aspect of themselves well before getting hormone therapy, and have time to anticipate, imagine, fantasize, about something they are told is very essential to gender. It's sort of already rehearsed. I can't help but wonder if saline or sugar could have also made that individual get into a bar fight, as long as he was under the impression it was testosterone.
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Jenner might be trans but isn't necessarily a good articulator of experience or feelings. So people can rightfully be offended by nonsensical/rationally vague things that come out her mouth, but that's not necessarily the case being made nor speaks for all trans people. I know transpeople who are great communicators and very intelligent, and I know others who are lousy communicators and have different strengths.
Jenner has never seemed very emotionally aware and in fact seems to have suppressed this without dealing with it for decades, to the tune of three marriages. Of course if she opens her mouth now, she's going to be regurgitating much of the most general speak she's heard that has had an impact, much as people who hear inspirational quotes will post them on their FaceBook feed because they are meaningful to them and "gelled" a bunch of ambiguous feelings they might have had about life. The only reason Jenner is a spokesperson is because American loves money and celebrity; those are her only qualifications. I'm surprised she's done as well as she has and been received as well as she has been, but honestly, the experience of the average (and maybe not just average, but 90% of transpeople or more) does not include a lot of public acclaim, photo shoots, unlimited spending accounts, countless plastic surgeries to look better whenever you feel like it, media fawning over you and offering you TV specials, etc. I've definitely seen worse celebrities tossed into the limelight (who have made even more of a mess articulating trans thought and experience), but Jenner's not really representative of the best arguments or thinking behind things. It's understandable she would be targetted -- she is the BIGGEST cultural target right now and people want to knock her down / find fault with her -- but again, not really representative.
Yes. Like you said, she's now the spokesperson, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. And like I said, she's making mistakes that are typical for any average person to make. Unfortunately, this is what's going to be informing a lot of people about the topic, so those mistakes ought to be addressed.