Hegseth Plans to Screen All Troops, Including Women, for Low Testosterone
By Greg Jaffe and Azeen Ghorayshi
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday a new mandatory screening program to test all service members age 30 and older, including women, for testosterone deficiency annually.
Hormone treatment for troops with low testosterone will be voluntary.
“Our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual warfighter,” Mr. Hegseth said in a video from his Pentagon office. “We have a sacred duty to maintain that advantage.”
The goal, he said in a social media message accompanying the video, was a “High-T Department of War,” Mr. Hegseth’s preferred name for the Defense Department.
Mr. Hegseth’s focus on testosterone levels at a moment when U.S. forces are ramping up attacks in Iran is unorthodox. Defense secretaries typically focus on larger strategic questions, involving alliances, war and weapons production.
But Mr. Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer and Iraq war veteran, has not shied away from getting involved in the minutiae of service members’ lives, such as mandating new grooming standards for troops who, because of skin conditions, had previously been permitted to grow beards.
“No more beardos,” he proclaimed.
Troops under 30 can volunteer to be screened, and anyone with low hormone levels will have the option to receive testosterone replacement therapy, or T.R.T. “It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capability,” Mr. Hegseth said.
The aim, he said, is to better prepare service members for a modern battlefield that Mr. Hegseth described as “brutal and unrelenting.”
Though T.R.T. has legitimate medical use, the hormone has also been skyrocketing in popularity in the United States as a lifestyle drug to build muscle mass. Demand has grown from fewer than 1 million prescriptions in 2000 to nearly 12 million in 2025.
Low testosterone most often impacts men as they age. Of late, though, T.R.T. use is rising most rapidly among younger men, many of whom do not have clinically low testosterone levels. Popular influencers including Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman have spoken publicly about their own use of T.R.T., as has Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mr. Hegseth, as defense secretary, has sought to cultivate an image as a manosphere-friendly leader. He regularly exercises with troops. He has overseen a ban on transgender service members and has questioned whether women are a detriment to ground combat units. The defense secretary has repeatedly blocked the promotions of women to general and admiral ranks, even after they were selected by boards made up of senior officers.
He has also embraced the manosphere’s vaccine skepticism. Earlier this year, he ordered an end to mandatory annual flu vaccines, calling the policy an “absurd, overreaching” mandate. Two months later, after a flu outbreak at Air Force basic training that sickened hundreds and killed one trainee, the military reversed course and began requiring flu vaccines for all troops and trainees at initial entry units...
Mr. Hegseth’s move is in line with a recent push by Mr. Kennedy to expand access to T.R.T. among American men. Studies in several countries have shown that testosterone levels, which decrease slowly with age, are lower among younger generations of men than historical averages.
While many researchers have argued that the trend is being driven by rising obesity and increasingly sedentary lifestyles, Mr. Kennedy has called declining testosterone an “existential” threat to humanity.
