(8) In the process that could be described as the gradual cultural and human de-structuring of the institution of marriage, the spread of a certain ideology of “gender” should not be underestimated.  According to this ideology, being a man or a woman is not determined fundamentally by sex but by culture.  Therefore, the very bases of the family and inter-personal relationships are attacked.  Some considerations should be made in this regard because of the importance of this ideology in contemporary culture and its influence on the phenomenon of de facto unions.

In the integrative dynamics of the human personality, one very important factor is identity.  During childhood and adolescence, a person progressively gains awareness of being “him/herself”, an awareness of his/her own identity.  This is integrated into a process of recognition of one’s being and, consequently, of the sexual dimension of one’s being.  This is therefore awareness of identity and difference.  Experts usually make a distinction between sexual identity (i.e., awareness of the psycho-biological identity of one’s sex, and the difference with regard to the other sex), and generic identity (i.e., awareness of the psycho-social and cultural identity of the role which persons of a determined sex play in society).  In a correct and harmonious process of integration, sexual and generic identity are complementary because persons live in society according to the cultural aspects corresponding to their sex.  The category of generic sexual identity (“gender”) is therefore of a psycho-social and cultural nature.  It corresponds to and is harmonious with sexual identity of a psycho-biological nature when the integration of the personality is achieved as recognition of the fullness of the person’s inner truth, the unity of body and soul.

Starting from the decade between 1960-1970, some theories (which today are usually described by experts as “constructionist”) hold not only that generic sexual identity (“gender”) is the product of an interaction between the community and the individual, but that this generic identity is independent from personal sexual identity: i.e., that masculine and feminine genders in society are the exclusive product of social factors, with no relation to any truth about the sexual dimension of the person.  In this way, any sexual attitude can be justified, including homosexuality, and it is society that ought to change in order to include other genders, together with male and female, in its way of shaping social life.[6][6]

The ideology of “gender” found a favorable environment in the individualist anthropology of radical neo-liberalism.[7][7]  Claiming a similar status for marriage and de facto unions (including homosexual unions) is usually justified today on the basis of categories and terms that come from the ideology of “gender”.[8][8]  In this way, there is a certain tendency to give the name “family” to all kinds of consensual unions, thus ignoring the natural inclination of human freedom to reciprocal self-giving and its essential characteristics which are the basis of that common good of humanity, the institution of marriage.