Testosterone is a hormone, meaning it is a chemical messenger produced in our bodies that relays information from one cell to another. It’s a hormone that all people create, cisgender men typically produce more of it than other people — but there’s far more natural variation in its production than we might initially think!

Why are we talking about testosterone anyways?! What does it really matter?

It’s an interesting topic to us, because like all things gender-related, testosterone has more dimensions to its significance than ever before.

For instance, there are debates around the influence of testosterone, within both science and the wider culture. Sometimes it’s hailed (or blamed) as being responsible for aggression, strength, speed, decisiveness, and violence. But is a single hormone responsible for such complex emotions and behaviours? If it’s more complicated than that, why has it been oversimplified?

Testosterone has also been commodified: sometimes as anti-aging supplementation for cis men, sometimes as “masculinity in a bottle” that will cure all of a man’s problems (from low mood to weight gain), and other times as performance enhancement for athletes. How much of this is tied to social and cultural expectations of what a man “should be”?

As a commodity, testosterone can have incredible and life-saving effects for transgender men and nonbinary people, as well as for cis men who survive different diseases or injuries that decrease their testosterone levels. What can we learn from this?

Testosterone has also been used as a tool to exclude. For instance, in sports, where many sports organizations have convoluted hormone rules that are impacting both trans and cisgender athletes. What is that about?

So join us as we untangle testosterone facts and myths, and the real-world impacts that testosterone as a hormone, commodity, and symbol, has on us and the world around us!

We look forward to seeing you on October 25 at 7 pm Eastern Time!