Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that active-duty service members age 30 and older will undergo mandatory annual testosterone screenings, part of a new Pentagon initiative he framed as essential to maintaining troops’ “tactical advantage.”
The screening will be folded into troops’ existing annual health assessment, Hegseth said in a nearly three-minute video posted to X and captioned “The High-T Department of War.” Service members under 30 can request the test voluntarily but won’t be required to take it. If a deficiency is found, testosterone replacement therapy remains optional.
“While we invest heavily in our weapon systems, platforms and gear, our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual warfighter,” Hegseth said.
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Hegseth described the initiative as “restoring and optimizing” troops’ natural capabilities rather than “artificial enhancement,” and said it reflects “well-established science that as we age, testosterone levels often naturally drop.”
The Pentagon did not say whether female service members would receive comparable hormone screening, instead referring questions back to Hegseth’s video.
The announcement drew sharp, on-record pushback from congressional Democrats with military backgrounds. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat and Iraq War veteran who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the policy sounded “like gender-affirming care to me,” a pointed reference to Hegseth’s opposition to transgender troops serving in the military.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Pennsylvania Democrat and Air Force veteran, said the announcement “proves that Secretary Hegseth takes direction from the far corners of the manosphere.”
Both lawmakers called on Hegseth to expand hormone screening to female service members as well, with Duckworth noting that both men and women in the military face disproportionately higher infertility rates than the general population.
The policy is on-brand for Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has pushed a series of fitness- and appearance-focused directives since taking over the Pentagon.
He has imposed stricter “male standard” fitness tests across service branches, complained publicly about “fat generals and admirals,” and banned most beard exemptions last September, a policy that disproportionately affects Black service members who develop razor bumps from shaving, which the Navy says affects roughly 60% of Black men.
Sailors who can’t resolve the condition within a year face discharge, under a policy the Navy expanded this month. It also arrives amid a wider Trump administration push to expand testosterone therapy access, with the FDA moving in April to loosen decades-old prescribing restrictions and the Department of Health and Human Services proposing further changes this month.
