US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made no secret of his desire to be more manly military.
He constantly asserts that the American armed forces lowered their combat standards to include women. He organized various photo sessions during which he exercises And iron pumps with the military. In his speeches, Hegseth claims that the Trump administration is restoring a “warrior ethos» to his legions of “war fighters.”
He now has a rather dubious plan to ensure the troops are as macho as possible: testosterone tests and, in cases where an individual’s testosterone is found to be deficient, voluntary hormone therapy.
“Under the supervision of our world-class medical professionals, fighters ages 30 and older will be tested annually as part of their periodic health assessment,” Hegseth said in a statement. short video posted on his official X account on Wednesday. Those under 30 will also be able to participate in these evaluations, he explained.
“If treatment is recommended, it is entirely up to you whether you choose to receive testosterone replacement therapy,” Hegseth added.
Speaking directly to the military, Hegseth said without providing evidence that the program would benefit “your performance, resilience and long-term health.” He also said the initiative was “not about artificial enhancement,” but rather “restoring and optimizing your natural abilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation necessary to sustain the fight.”
Adrian Dobs, who studies gonadal endocrine function at Johns Hopkins University, told WIRED that she was “pretty surprised that that’s what they’re thinking about” and that “it’s a very complicated issue to make a diagnosis of male hypogonadism,” the medical term for when the testicles don’t produce enough testosterone.
Dobs says Hegseth appears to radically oversimplify the complex issues involved in diagnosing low testosterone, including the variability in testosterone levels depending on the type of test (or analysis) performed and even the time of day the test is performed.
Due to circadian rhythms, she points out, the hormone is typically seen at “higher levels in the morning and lower levels throughout the day.” Another logistical problem, Dobs says, lies in individual circumstances. It is one thing to test, for example, “a healthy person who is sitting at a desk” and another to test someone who has returned “from basic or overseas training and who may have lost weight and was under significant physical stress at that time”, because chronic stress can inhibit testosterone production.
Hegseth’s view on testosterone itself is “misinformed,” according to Dobs. “Testosterone is a very important hormone,” she says, and it plays a key role in puberty and masculinization. “But it’s not something that’s going to make you smarter. It’s not something that’s going to make you live longer – we just don’t have any data to suggest that.” The longevity claim, she adds, would be incredibly difficult to prove anyway.
The Pentagon declined to comment beyond Hegseth’s description of the testing and treatment process. So it’s unclear what specific results the Defense Department hopes to achieve by administering testosterone to untold numbers of active-duty service members, or whether women in the armed forces will also undergo hormonal evaluations. The Department of Defense also has not made public what scientific research and medical experts, if any, informed this decision.
Besides the problems with defining “normal” amounts of testosterone and standardizing the screening process, Dobs says, using testosterone replacement as an easy fix for a deficiency ignores standard diagnostic practice, which is to first identify and treat any underlying conditions. Potential root causes – from kidney or liver disease to diabetes – should be addressed “before you jump into hormonal intervention,” she says.
The recent explosive demand because a “high T” tends to mask the risks associated with the use of the hormone.
“If a man takes testosterone, his own testicles will essentially shut down. They’re at risk of having what they call testicular atrophy, so the testicles can become smaller,” says Dobs. Another associated side effect is a drop in sperm count, which she said should be a concern for service members in their 20s and 30s, “essentially at the peak of their fertility.” Decreased sperm counts also do not automatically rebound once a person stops testosterone. And testosterone can thicken the blood, making the heart work harder.
None of these facts appear to have penetrated the MAHA movement or the Manosphere influencers who support its pseudoscience, including the belief that testosterone can be taken by any man as some kind of miracle drug. The head of the conspiracy podcast, Joe Rogan, is quite open about his testosterone replacement therapy regimen; he recommend it to all men over 40. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is another supporter; it is currently seeking, through the United States Food and Drug Administration, to eliminate warning labels on the TRTincluding language related to the potential for adverse cardiovascular effects.
“It’s not a simple, trivial thing,” Dobs said of Hegseth’s proposal. “You just can’t do that without really knowing what’s going on with a patient.” Even though Kennedy and Rogan can claim that TRT has significantly improved their lives, she says, “when you look at the studies, it’s not really clear what it does.” » Testosterone treatments can certainly be effective in many cases, says Dobs, such as when men have clinically low T levels caused by a genetic abnormality, trauma, infection or pituitary tumor. However, this does not make it a universal prescription.
Nevertheless, Hegseth obviously sees it as a tool in his mission to reshape the armed forces according to a particular masculinist and anti-diversity philosophy. Under his tenure, the Pentagon attempted to purge transgender soldiers and preventing trans people from enlisting. He imposed “male norm« fitness tests and blocked scheduled promotions women and people of color. High-ranking female officers and people of color have been banned from their posts without explanation, while officers of color were ousted for perceived roles in what Hegseth called “DEI woke up shit.”
More recently, the Navy announced that it stop issuing medical exemptions for permanent shaving to sailors suffering from shaving-related health problems, instead offering a year of medical treatment to give them a chance to meet the requirement for a clean-shaven face. If they still can’t, they will be deleted. Last year, Hegseth published a on the cover on shaving exemptions for almost all troops. A common reason for exemption is pseudofolliculitis barbia, which causes painful inflammation after shaving – it affects approximately 45 percent of black service members and only 3 percent of white military personnel.
Although the discriminatory intent of some of these measures is blatant, the practical objectives of the new testosterone directive remain unclear. Dobs says Hegseth and the Department of Defense offer no concrete “measures of success” to justify their belief in testosterone as a natural performance enhancer.
“What is the role that people envision and what does Hegseth want? » » asks Dobs. “Is he looking for someone who will be stronger on the field? Is he looking for someone who will be smarter when flying in a plane? That’s a difficult question to study.”
As with many policies of Donald Trump’s administration, it may simply be a matter of mood.