The High-T Department of War
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants the military to check its testosterone levels.
On Wednesday, Hegseth announced a new policy requiring annual testosterone-deficiency screenings for service members 30 and older as part of their regular health assessments. Troops under 30 may opt in voluntarily, and testosterone replacement therapy, if recommended, will also be voluntary. The apparent goal is not to turn every officer into a linebacker, but to keep troops “strong, resilient, and capable” for the demands of the battlefield.
Naturally, Democratic critics treated the announcement as if Hegseth’s policy came straight from the mouth of Andrew Tate.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D–PA), an Air Force veteran, said the policy “proves that Secretary Hegseth takes direction from the far corners of the manosphere.”
Others, such as Sen. Adam Schiff (D–CA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D–WA), thought they had a “gotcha” moment by likening the Pentagon’s testosterone screening plan to cross-sex “gender-affirming care.”
“Pete Hegseth comes out in favor of gender-affirming care,” wrote Schiff, while Jayapal said, “The Secretary of Forever Wars, Pete Hegseth, just announced they are going to provide hormone therapy to male service members who don’t have enough testosterone … Let’s be clear: This is gender-affirming care, and it completely debunks all of Republicans’ attacks on trans people.”
Because it evidently is not obvious to some, addressing a deficiency of a hormone that a man’s body naturally produces is not the equivalent of artificially suppressing one sex hormone and elevating another so far past your baseline that you grow breasts.
When a man is low in testosterone, as becomes more prevalent past the age of 30, there are noticeable and significant effects across the board. It is not just some cosmetic metric or signal of masculinity; it is “tied to muscle mass, bone density, metabolism, energy, concentration, mood, and physical performance.” The subsequent drop-offs in performance and ability have real overlap with the demands of military life.
Hegseth even clarified that “this is not about artificial enhancement; it’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.”
Under President Biden, Democrats were all too happy for the government to foot the bill for actual sex reassignment surgery for veterans and active service members through health care coverage. But to screen and provide for a biological factor tied to strength, concentration, and performance of active service members? Well, that’s a bridge too far.
The mission of the military is to “provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.” Checking whether service members sworn to defend the nation are biologically capable of performing at their best level is not exactly a deranged idea.
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