A Look at the Booming Testosterone Movement

Testosterone treatment was once reserved for men with naturally low levels of the hormone, but Azeen Ghorayshi explains in the New York Times Magazine that its use is exploding as younger and older men alike chase what amounts to a new masculine ideal. She tracks how Trump health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in particular has turned the hormone into a symbol of national vitality, touting his own testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), pushing supplements in federal nutrition guidelines, and backing looser FDA rules that would let far more men qualify for prescriptions. At the same time, online clinics and influencers like Joe Rogan are touting testosterone as a lifestyle upgrade, fueling a prescription boom that's particularly strong among men in their 30s and 40s.

Ghorayshi lays out the tension: Many men with medically low testosterone remain untreated, even as a growing number with normal levels are using TRT to boost muscle, libido, mood boosts, and status—sometimes via underground labs. Doctors warn about fertility damage and unrealistic body ideals, while the hormone itself gets pulled into partisan identity politics. For advocates, it represents health, vitality, and resistance to decline. Kennedy, for example, sees declining testosterone levels worldwide as an "existential threat" to humanity, notes Ghorayshi. To critics, however, the surge in use reflects a commercialized and politicized effort to turn ordinary male anxieties into a diagnosable condition. Read the full story, in which Ghorayshi interviews 14 men taking testosterone.