I loathe going to the doctor.
Not a controversial opinion, compared to 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”.
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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. Probably not. I think that’s probably the one thing we can agree it doesn’t do.
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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. First of all, I’m not a professional athlete. I don’t need to dunk a basketball or dominate my gym’s racquetball league. I’m a writer. My fingers work just fine.
Do I need to function better sexually? If anything, I wouldn’t mind my libido toning down a bit. Will testosterone regrow my hair? I’d at least consider it if it did, but apparently, it makes hair loss worse. What good will a bit more muscle mass be if I end up looking like Steve Harvey without the millions of dollars that make Steve Harvey attractive? If you give me a million dollars, I’ll take testosterone. There, the offer is in writing.
While fighting hormone therapy for trans troops, the Trump administration is simultaneously suggesting to cis men like me that I should be taking it instead, even if I don’t actually want it. Or need it. Considering my high interest in sex, perfectly acceptable athletic ability, and generally sedentary lifestyle, if anything, maybe I have too much testosterone.
I’m perpetually angry – about someone cutting me off in traffic, the escalator at the AMC Burbank 16 that never works, and the Lakers’ starting lineup. Would I be a more valuable member of society if I got out of my car and walloped the guy who swerved in front of me? Should I be bashing the escalator at the AMC with an aluminum baseball bat until the police arrive?
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Like any normal person my age, I take my aggression out in video games. Whenever I get too apoplectic to function, I turn on my Playstation 5 and queue up RoboCop: Rogue City, a game where you play as the titular cybernetic lawman of the future – blasting criminals with a high-powered, rapid-fire pistol. The only thing more satisfying than a robot eviscerating drug-addled gutter punks inside a game is when you get to issue parking citations and arrest people for public urination. Yes, you can do that in the game. It never gets old.
I’m sure this is not what Pete Hegseth means when he talks about “lethality”, but this is as close as I’m going to get – wiping out a street gang with a rocket launcher. I assure you I don’t need more testosterone for that.
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Underneath much of this tedious discourse and my own dread of seeing a doctor, though, is the fundamental premise that there’s something wrong with the natural progression of the human body. That, for some reason, we need to fix people who aren’t sick – as though we’re in some Jean-Claude Van Damme movie and need to be turned into a biologically enhanced weapon so we can swim more laps or something.
Is the key to life being able to bench press 300lb at the age of 75? For some, sure. I salute them. And yet, we are destined to age, to be rendered irrelevant, and to die. No matter what you inject or swallow from the pharmacist, it’s going to happen. That’s as normal as a stiff breeze. There’s no conquering reality. Just ask your doctor.
