Not a controversial opinion, compared with some of the other ones in this section of the Guardian. I’m not exactly arguing for universal basic income or for Manchester City to be relegated to the Saudi Pro League here. No one looks forward to a doctor visit, with its recriminations for bad habits or various intrusive blood tests.
People don’t have cocktail parties to celebrate their yearly check-up, and yet, it seems like every day, there’s a new reason to go get prodded by a stranger in a lab coat. Our collective fascination with testosterone levels is just another instance of me (specifically me) being shamed into more medical tests. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and others in the Trump administration have been prattling on about testosterone for years now, claiming it’s the key to maintaining what’s left of our civilization.
Hegseth wants to test soldiers for T levels, and offer testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) to those who don’t have sufficient medically verifiable machismo. He sees this as “restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight”. The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, removed limits on TRT in June of this year, so that more men could be legally prescribed testosterone rather than, say, buying it at a gas station or from the back of a 2007 Dodge Caravan in the parking lot of an Arby’s.
The science behind the perceived benefits of testosterone replacement therapy for cisgender men are hotly debated – a debate I’m simply too stupid to wade into. I have a hard time doing long division. How am I going to understand what injecting hormones into my body is going to do?
Maybe testosterone will make me smarter. I think that’s probably the one thing we can agree it doesn’t do. It’s bad enough that I have to be tested for blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C and eyesight.
Why throw another thing on the pile of stuff I have to worry about? And is this actually worth my concern? Testosterone allegedly makes you more athletic, more virile, and more sexually active.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
