If you are a woman of a certain age, there’s a new wonder drug that is flooding your feeds: testosterone. The hormone — which both men and women naturally have, but produce less of as they grow older — is being touted as a cure to low libido, low energy, and other symptoms. The Real Housewives are on it. Halle Berry is too. TikTok is obsessed with it.

Testosterone’s role in the body helps with bone and muscle development, as well as sexual function. But the Food and Drug Administration has not approved testosterone treatment for women for perimenopause or menopause, so they have to seek it out off-label. However, numerous studies have shown that a low dose of the hormone can improve menopausal women’s libido.

But some women are taking testosterone at far higher doses, ones that approach those taken by transgender people, who use hormone replacement therapy to address gender dysphoria. New York Times Magazine writer Susan Dominus spoke to many of them for an article that’s taken the internet by storm.

“There were women who told me that they had hit the wall and how much weight they could lift, and suddenly they were breaking through,” Dominus told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. “They were toned. Women were having orgasms for the first time in years and years. One woman told me that her entire relationship to sex changed, that even when she was having sex, she was thinking about the next time they were gonna have sex.”

Dominus spoke to King about the benefits and side effects of testosterone treatment for women, why the FDA has been hesitant to approve it, and the sprawling economy that’s formed to provide the hormone.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained........

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