i'm pleased to have all of them here and begin this conversation with my colleague eric kandel. eric: we will talk about gender identity and the biology of the brain. this is a marvelous topic and i like it particularly because it shows how brain science can be liberating in our life. as we understand the biology of our own gender identity better and become more comfortable with ourselves to become more empathic to somebody else's gender identity, we can understand it at age 9 10, a person says i am in the wrong body. we really can sympathize with them and understand what is going on. but, this is not only an interesting topic, it is an unbelievably timely topic. when we began talking about this six months ago it was not on the radar screen. we were ahead of our time. but now, you cannot pick up an issue of the new york times or vanity fair without having a discussion of gender identity. charlie: 17 million people watched the diane sawyer interview. eric: what we can bring to bear is not a deep discussion of psychological issues, but what the biological issues are. when we begin

i'm pleased to have all of them here and to begin this conversation with my colleague eric kandel. what are we going to talk about? >> we're going to speak about gender identity and the biology of the brain. this is a marvelous topic. and i like it in particular because it shows how brain science can be a liberating influence in our life. as we understand the biology of our own gender identity better, and become more comfortable with ourselves we become more empathic to somebody else's gender identity. and we can understand if all of a sudden at age eight nine or ten a person says i'm in the wrong body. we really can sympathize with them and understand what is going on. but this is to the only an interesting topic it's an unbelievably timely topic. when you and i first began talking about this six months ago it was not on the radar screen. we were ahead of our time. and but now but now you can't pick up an issue of "the new york times" or "vanity fair" without having a discussion of gender identity. >> rose: and 17 million people watched the diane sawyer interview. >> an what we ca