As with many of the challenges to the Catholic faith, transgender ideology is one that is particularly pointed. It reaches deep into the vacuums that have arisen within family life and introduces much confusion. I would like to give attention not so much to the transgender ideology, but to its ability to have such an impact.
When something is strong inside, nothing outside can shake it. So, if transgender ideology is shaking family life, and children, then it is because there has arisen a weakness. I would affirm that weakness to be a failure of both mothers and fathers to understand their own identities, to live out those identities, and to transmit those identities to their children. This has created a spiritual vacuum which makes family life vulnerable to many deformations, one of which is the gender problem.
Such vulnerable is found throughout history. Cicero and Augustine both argue that if an civic order has lost its moral courage, its just order, its dedication to the common good, then it will be defeated by barbarian invaders or implode on its own self-destruction. One can see the same effects throughout history. The weakening of Christendom opened the doors for nationalism to begin to rule the day. The weakening of Europe with that rise of nationalism, opened the door to various totalitarian ideologies such as communism and Nazism. One sees the same patterns both in families and in individuals. When an individual has become unstable, they can easily become manipulated by others to join this or that fad or cult. They easily succumb to depression or they become violent. Family life when the father no longer pays attention, cares about the good of his wife and children, and sloths off into some chair or world of his own, then it leaves doors open to any corruptive forces. And there are plenty. Likewise, when a mother abandons her loved ones to be care and nurtured by another, then it leaves them open to a multitude of deformed pleasures. The father moves the family to the good, sometimes with fear, and always with command. The mother opens the good so that it resides deeply in the heart. Without both living out their identities in relationship with each, the vacuum left for all incoming fads ad ideas is great. It sucks them into the heart, and then it bursts forth into hatred and chaos.