- United States
- Ohio
- Letter
I am writing as your constituent to express urgent concern regarding Defense Secretary Hegseth’s new mandatory testosterone screening policy. This sweeping program trades genuine military readiness and fiscal responsibility for a superficial, unproven health mandate.
- Lacks Medical & Military Justification. Medical guidelines explicitly advise against blanket testosterone screening for asymptomatic individuals. Diverting military healthcare personnel and taxpayer funds toward universal hormone testing for non-combat, technical, and logistical roles degrades our operational focus without enhancing defense capabilities.
- Jeopardizes the Safety and Inclusion of Servicewomen. The U.S. military continues to fight a documented crisis of sexual assault and harassment. Rolling out a top-down hormonal mandate—which media commentators instantly trivialized with jokes about troops becoming "wild animals" around women—sends a dangerous signal about base culture and safety. Furthermore, the Department has offered no clear standard for female personnel, leaving 230,000+ active-duty women treated as an afterthought in a program built on male-coded rhetoric.
- Undermines Professional Merit. Military readiness depends on rigorous physical training, discipline, and technical expertise—not unevidenced hormonal manipulation. Our service members deserve an equitable workplace governed by objective standards, not top-down social experiments.
I urge you to:
1. Demand immediate House/Senate Armed Services Committee oversight hearings into the DOD’s justification and medical evidence for this mandate.
2. Request a GAO audit assessing the financial cost and impact on troop health and readiness.
3. Block funding through the next Defense Authorization bill for mass screening programs that lack clinical medical consensus.
Thank you for standing up for evidence-based readiness and the safety of our armed forces.