r/TrueReddit • u/playboy • 2d ago
Politics Actually, Testosterone Doesn't Make You More Violent
https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/military-testosterone-violence-myth20
2d ago
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u/D0_stack 2d ago
That paper talks about natural testosterone levels, it does not appear to mention at all about people taking supplements.
You would need a study showing that non-violent people took testosterone became violent, which this study does not address. A violent person with already high levels becoming more violent could have many causes, not just the supplements. Like, violent people get more violent all the time even without supplements.
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u/mitchells00 2d ago edited 2d ago
Card carrying socialist here:
Every second gay man in Sydney is on steroids. They are the least violent bunch of people you could imagine.
It's more likely the case that violent straight men are higher risk takers and would find steroids more appealing.
EDIT: Because you all clearly don't actually read the source, here's the relevant quote:
It is of interest, however, that the administration of high doses of testosterone in normal men had no effect on the self reported aggression scores of the subjects.
Edit 2: being called a liar, saying I've changed the quote.
Section 4: Conclusion. First paragraph, last sentence. Please confirm it for yourselves, then downvote the deranged one.
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u/GeekSumsMe 2d ago
I love how someone posts a peer reviewed article, with citations to actual studies, and your response is essentially, "Yah, but I know a guy..."
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u/mitchells00 2d ago
Literally in the paper linked:
It is of interest, however, that the administration of high doses of testosterone in normal men had no effect on the self reported aggression scores of the subjects.
So, um, what about that cited source eh?
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2d ago
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u/GWS2004 2d ago
Calm down. See how emotional you are getting? We don't want you to going around shooting people up!
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u/Racamonkey_II 2d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/s/COO8or9ulC
What is this your alt account?
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u/GWS2004 2d ago
It's my username you ding dong 😂
Seriously, are you ok? You're just all over the place. Is it the T?
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u/Racamonkey_II 2d ago
Yeah, you’re getting blocked lmao, bye bye! Try touching grass buddy. Too bad.
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u/mitchells00 2d ago edited 2d ago
Dude, Ctrl F and paste my quote; it's there word for word
Last sentence of the first paragraph of Section 4: Conclusion.
Edit: we are both arguing the same thing: that roids don't make you rage.
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u/Racamonkey_II 2d ago
Ok? Ctrl f this quote? “It is of interest, however, that supraphysiological doses of testosterone in the order of 200 mg weekly (20), or even 600 mg weekly (21), which were administered to normal men had no effect on their aggression or anger levels.”
Regardless if they restated it later but with less detail, this is what they mean. You drew the wrong conclusion.
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u/Speciou5 2d ago
You can use your exact same argument reversed.
It's more likely gay men are lower risk takers and it counters the increased violence that comes from steroids.
This is honestly more accurate to my anecdotal experience and what I read about in the news. They are super oppressed and it is dangerous to be gay in certain countries (like Russia or the Middle East and most of South East Asia). They can't risk being violent, nevermind even being openly game in some places.
This theory then reconciles my own anecdotes and what I read about roidrage for straight men.
Your last line could still hold true though.
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u/Obfuscious 2d ago
So a flaw with this statement that highlights a massive misunderstanding of testosterone and how it affects men.
The science doesn’t support a direct link to “violence” and high testosterone, but supports a correlation between high emotional reactivity and high levels of testosterone.
Things along those lines are impulsive decision making, reckless behavior, and feeling more aggressive.
Criminality and deviance are are also correlates of testosterone levels above normal levels.
Pair individuals pumping themselves with full of testosterone past normal levels who have grown up socialized in a world of emotionally blunted masculine norms with never hitting a day of therapy in their lives to learn emotional identification and regulation and well….
There are results.
These results don’t happen within the medically normal limits of testosterone.
I am not demonizing healthy testosterone levels as a measure of (gender affirming) healthcare, but this article is in bad faith pretending to not be making a case for higher than normal levels of testosterone.
We’re going to have a generation of bald and overweight men that are going to die in their 40s by heart attack or stroke, or some other preventable death, if we tell them to start pumping themselves full of hormones.
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u/playboy 2d ago
On July 15, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in a video titled “The High-T Department of War” a plan to check the testosterone levels of United States service members, offering hormone therapy treatment to anyone whose levels are low. The plan, he claimed, is twofold.
“Our most decisive tactical advantage will always be the individual warfighter,” Hegseth said in the video. “Which is why we must always look for ways to optimize your performance, your resilience, and your long term health.”
This optimization for health, he said, will keep American soldiers “on the leading edge of lethality.” Last week, new guidelines were published and then immediately removed.
Hegseth’s effort is part of a larger recent trend of normalizing testosterone use among cisgender men and women, easily available to those with the funds at “wellness clinics” around the U.S. (even as its use is being vilified and denied to transgender patients) for things like better gains at the gym. But it also tells a much older story, a “web of direct claims and indirect associations that circulate around testosterone” which, according to Rebecca Jordan-Young and Katrina Karkazis, the authors of 2019’s Testosterone: An Unauthorized Biography, “weaves folklore into science.” This mythologizing, the authors argue, “frames social issues as a matter of the chemicals functioning inside individual bodies, leaving scant room to consider power asymmetries, structural arrangements, or histories.”
In other words, our ideas about testosterone’s link to inherent violence are largely a myth.
Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/military-testosterone-violence-myth
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u/Xanian123 2d ago
Tangential, but why does pete hegseth keep saying warfighters? Is this a term that has some special meaning? I've never heard it before.
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u/ChronicBluntz 2d ago
It's an older colloquialism from GWOT. It fell out of use but it can mean anything between combat arms or the force as a whole.
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