LOS ANGELES, California, September 5, 2026 — The Pentagon withdrew guidance regarding mandatory testosterone screening that it issued just a day earlier. A U.S. official said the policy “has been suspended temporarily to be updated.” The department updates the document, but it will continue to operate under interim guidance.
It turns a focus to the way the policy was implemented. Initially, the guidance had been widely available on Pentagon and Defense Health Agency websites, but first reported it being quietly removed. The department has not explained what specific changes caused the immediate removal.
A policy that was taken down within 24 hours
The Pentagon’s Clinical Guidance for Health and Human Performance Optimization, released Wednesday. The memo and the statement disappeared from official websites by Thursday. Attempts to access pages about the document received Page Not Found messages on the Defense Health Agency site.
It would have applied to service members 30 and older. About 10 Details about military health care policy are kept at the Pentagon’s medical oversight arm. The screening was supposed to roll out during troops’ annual health assessments.
How the screening was intended to function
At first, men would fill out a questionnaire that might lead to a follow-up blood screen. Then a positive would mean eligible troops begin testosterone hormone replacement therapy. Women would follow through a separate questionnaire stream linked to different treatment conditions.
The guidance restricted the use of testosterone in women to a specific few diagnoses for which there is strong evidence that treatment works. Another example they cited was Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, which is a clinically recognized disorder. The National Institutes of Health, the nation’s premiere medical research agency, publishes broader research on hormone therapy.
An agenda tied to a broader campaign
Hegseth first laid out the screening plan set to go into effect in July during a discussion on video. In his own messaging, it was titled “The Hight-T Dept of War.” Hegseth said that the effort was part of athletes returning troops’ “biological basis” for being ready to do battle.
It reflects a broader trend in how Hegseth thinks about military culture. He has stated time and again that he is against women in direct combat roles. He has also supported the Trump administration’s ban on openly serving transgender troops.
Questions About Medical Evidence
The guidance, which was quickly deleted when the government removed it from public scrutiny, faced demands to justify its scientific basis. Nevertheless, skeptics wondered whether testosterone screening on such a broad basis reflected expert consensus in the area of clinical best practices. The use of routine hormone therapy for otherwise healthy adults is not without its critics.
The Endocrine Society– one of the foremost medical professional societies- describes clinical screening standards for a number of hormone-related conditions. It has typically called for targeted testing rather than wide-spread mandates across the population. It is still not clear how the Pentagon’s new guidance will handle those issues.
The Pentagon has not provided a timeline for when it will publish an updated version of the policy. However, officials say that the actual screening requirement has not been scrapped. Service members will wait for final details on when the mandatory testing would actually start.
No statements have been issued by the relevant congressional committees on the reversal, however. Changes to the draft guidance will be tracked closely, military health advocates say. Others have suggested that more transparency as to how the original policy was created would benefit UCC.
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, also helps oversee Pentagon medical policy. Second, the agency has conducted cost and clinical effectiveness evaluations for military health programs in the past. The agency did not announce plans to study the testosterone screening policy specifically.
