Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that the Pentagon will begin requiring annual testosterone deficiency screenings for active-duty service members age 30 and older, saying the move is designed to improve military readiness and support long-term health.

The new policy, unveiled in a video posted to X, will make testosterone testing a standard part of the military’s existing annual periodic health assessments for troops over 30. Service members younger than 30 will have the option to receive the screening voluntarily.

“I’m authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members, ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best,” Hegseth said in the video.

  • regul [any]@hexbear.net
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    5 days ago

    It’s not important that armed forces members get vaccinated against transmissible disease, but it is important that they remain short-tempered and impulsive well into their 50s.

  • Acute_Engles [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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    Hegseth has to be the “bumbling empire” equivalent of a comic relief. When shit is getting a little too real he gets trotted out to go “hic’ listen here you fuckin’. … and another thing you’reall low fuckin… low T little wimps” And step on a rake and fall over

    • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      Jeffrey Epstein : is to Grigori Rasputin as : : Pete Hegseth : is to Alexander Protopopov. But in this timeline, Sergei Witte (Marco Rubio) was never fired, so he manages to just barely keep the Empire together.

  • Big [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    As a former roider: injecting testosterone into your body shuts down your body’s natural testosterone production and your body will produce extra estrogen to try to balance the heightened testosterone levels.

    If you were to suddenly quit using the steroids, your estrogen levels will still be going haywire while your natural testosterone production will remain shut down for quite a while. In heavier abuse cases, the body never resumes producing testosterone without medical help, like using PCT drugs.

    Meanwhile, your body will have no testosterone and huge levels of estrogen, leading to swelling and development of breasts and sore, enlarged nipples.

    Hegseth is essentially bimbofying the troops.

    • doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml
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      and your body will produce extra estrogen to try to balance the heightened testosterone levels.

      Not quite. Testosterone is just one easy step away from estrogen. That’s why oral T mostly gets converted to estrogen in “first-pass” metabolism via the liver. It also means that when you have excessive T in your bloodstream, you end up with excessive estrogen.

      If you were to suddenly quit using the steroids, your estrogen levels will still be going haywire while your natural testosterone production will remain shut down for quite a while.

      I’m pretty sure you end up with an overall deficit of sex hormones, not an excess of estrogen

      Meanwhile, your body will have no testosterone and huge levels of estrogen

      Testicles will stop producing T, but your body would still have T from the injections or the gel. As long as these levels remain in the ‘normal’ physiological range, so will the amount of estrogen.

      leading to swelling and development of breasts and sore, enlarged nipples.

      The military will give any bimbofied casualties free top surgery. It’s actually pretty common

  • Test_Tickles [any]@hexbear.net
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    Right-wingers love to make testosterone their magical potion that gives them infinite manhood/virility/libido/toughness. As if we are that simple, that one hormone will remedy how we feel and think moving through this world. They’re more likely dealing with depression that results in how they feel and unfortunately dealing with that will not be as simple as popping any pill.

    • XiaCobolt [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      As if we are that simple, that one hormone will remedy how we feel and think moving through this world.

      Yeah it took two hormones to fix me. Estrogen AND progesterone.

        • insurgentrat [she/her, it/its]@hexbear.net
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          Cavet to all this, it’s a funny joke but IQ is deeply controversial as a measure for intelligence. The correlations with life outcomes (career success, social satisfaction etc) don’t hold true for all population last I checked.

          I think even Raven’s matrices turned out to be not universal culturally recently.

          That said, as a trans woman I found T filled me with so much rage it was often distracting. Or course, I was trans so idk what cis guys feel. I hear if you pump 'em with estrogen they get sad instead of peaceful and engaged with the beauty and wonder of this world.

          • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            Men with high T test worse on intelligence and aptitude than men with low T. Women test better than men, so the curve holds even for very low T levels.

            Interestingly, pre-hrt transfemmes consistently test higher on IQ than men and will also test better than their previous best after starting HRT. I have absolutely no idea why but I’m guessing it’s actually due to comorbidity with Autism/ADHD.

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      They’re too self centered to realize this malaise and shit isnt their fault because that would require them to realize other people share their problems

      So here they go, trying to remedy themselves with testosterone

  • principalkohoutek [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    Just another excuse to give “other than honorable discharges” to dudes about to retire to make sure they don’t get their full benefits. They use the PT requirement to kick out about-to-retire overweight troops all the time

  • mickey [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    My understanding is that the rate of medically low testosterone is pretty low outside of people with hypogonadism or injury, and of that small number of men some portion won’t even experience symptoms from low hormone levels. A doctor at a TRT clinic is probably going to have a hand wavey set of ranges they can use to prescribe test to anyone wanting to pay for it.

    I think they’re either going to have to set the standard range at something a) medically justifiable and it will hardly flag anybody b) arbitrarily low so they can get everyone on TRT c) leave it to be subjective case by case.

    First thought was how will this affect older service members WARFIGHTERS who are “deficient” and decline the “voluntary” HRT.

    Second thought was that all the young service members opting in are shoe-ins to get the docs to say hmm yes I see from your chart that you could be considered deficient, when would you like to start your permanent steroid program? I’m sure there’s a lot of juicing in .mil and LEO forces and this is a great way to put an official seal of approval on it.

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      I’m sure there’s a lot of juicing in .mil and LEO forces and this is a great way to put an official seal of approval on it.

      There’s fucktons and like any problem where it’s accountable to nobody because the rule breakers are the enforcers it festers

  • Nacarbac [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    And it’ll never be enough, and he seems to have the power to just refuse to grow up. Spiralling out in a desperate attempt to not look himself in the mirror, until they invent a kind of Space Marine that lives for three months before melting into a narcotic soup - grafted with a dozen bear testicles, fed a dozen steaks an hour, with an ethanol fuel cell, and a massive codpiece.

  • FourteenEyes [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    I like how he gets to display massive incompetence in failing to achieve literally any goals they had in attacking Iran, and he still gets to go to work and say this idiotic bullshit.

        • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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          Sorry best we can do is a lot of bitter girl-bosses determined to make capitalism but it works[tm] and then acting shocked that the state comes for their rights and joining up with Democrat party protest groups to attempt to liberal their way to victory via voting so, so much harder but for women this time. They’ll have so many clever signs and sooo much shaming power by wearing their old uniforms and playing up their patriotism tand how much they sacrificed and how this isn’t REAL America like the one they served.

          I wouldn’t count on boots in the US to do anything cool anytime soon. I feel by the time it gets to that point where it’s bad enough you’d have active duty military being the first to turn on the state and others joining in a follow-them fashion. That or the generals or CIA/deep state pulls a coup and deals with the people ruining the efficient running of their empire while seizing power to the claps of liberals.