Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens intently as President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced an initiative to screen US military members for low testosterone. “The modern battlefield is brutal and unrelenting,” he said. “It requires and demands maximum psychological and mental readiness. And by addressing these health markers early, we’re keeping you on the leading edge of lethality.” Troops found to be deficient in the screening, Hegseth said, would be offered testosterone therapy—which, he promised, would make them better warriors. “It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities,” he said, “protecting your longevity, ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.”
The idea of a widespread testosterone deficiency—”Low-T” among the extremely online—is having a moment. Over the last few years, influencers have made a cottage industry of telling men that their testosterone levels are low and selling them testosterone therapy. Consumer research firms estimate the market value for testosterone replacement therapy at around $2 billion; that number is expected to increase by a third by 2033.
Earlier this year, the Guardian reported on a recent study of low-T influencers by Emma Grundtvig Gram, a public health researcher at the University of Copenhagen. Gram and her colleagues analyzed 46 TikTok and Instagram posts with a combined following of more than 6.8 million. In the study abstract, the researchers noted that common themes in the posts included “the rebranding of low testosterone from an ‘old man’s problem’ to an issue affecting younger men and their fitness” and “low testosterone as a crisis of masculinity and male sexual performance.”
Yet the notion of a testosterone crisis in need of treatment is not backed by science, says Adriane Fugh-Berman, a professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. Screening for testosterone levels isn’t always accurate, she wrote in an email to Mother Jones, because in otherwise healthy men, levels can fluctuate dramatically. Symptoms can be “vague and nonspecific;” classic ones such as fatigue, brain fog, and low libido can be caused by myriad other conditions. What’s more, she says, “there is very little evidence that administration of testosterone can help symptoms.” The drawbacks of overprescribing testosterone are considerable; adverse effects include blood clots, fractures, heart arrhythmia, high blood pressure, kidney problems, infertility, and, adds Fugh-Berman, “let’s not forget testicular shrinkage.”
Despite these drawbacks, the Food and Drug Administration seems intent on exploring more applications for testosterone therapy. Last December, the agency convened what it described as an expert panel on the subject; panelists claimed that testosterone supplementation could improve men’s health and quality of life. In a comment to the FDA after the panel, the National Center for Health Research, a medical product safety advocacy group, wrote that testosterone therapy “does not improve strength or physical ability” and that “there is no established relationship between ‘Low-T’ and most of the symptoms that testosterone is being promoted to treat.” Testosterone, the group warned, “is not a fountain of youth or vitality.”
“A masculine message is not going to be declared by effeminate men. We have a real crisis in masculinity.”
But that doesn’t stop online influencers from claiming it is exactly that. Gram’s team wrote in the study abstract that the “low-T” posts they analyzed “prey on men’s insecurities about relationships and sexual performance” to sell “testosterone products for improving the masculine self without supporting evidence.”
In addition to the manosphere, another influence on Hegseth’s fixation on masculinity may be his spiritual leader, Doug Wilson, the self-proclaimed Christian nationalist Idaho pastor who preached at the Pentagon earlier this year. Wilson has opined extensively about the virtues of “biblical masculinity,” which he has called “cultural gluten.” Without a patriarchal society led by manly men, he wrote in his 2023 book Mere Christendom, “the cookie just crumbles to pieces in your hand, and is tasteless on top of that.” In a 2020 YouTube broadcast, Wilson declared, “A masculine message is not going to be declared by effeminate men. We have a real crisis in masculinity.” In a February interview with Military Times, Wilson noted, “We should do everything we can do to keep women out of combat roles.”
In an email to Mother Jones, Wilson called Hegseth’s testosterone screening initiative “a fascinating move” and said he would be “interested to see what they find out.”
Since becoming defense secretary in January 2025, Hegseth has ended affirmative action and trans-inclusive policies, dissolved the Pentagon committee that supported female troops, and blocked female military leaders from being promoted. In a speech at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, last year, he proclaimed, “No more dudes in dresses, we’re done with that!”
