U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, currently overseeing a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s ban of transgender military service members, wants the Pentagon to explain Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth’s newly-announced testosterone treatment program after using the same hormone care to justify kicking trans troops out of the military.
Judge Ana Reyes is demanding answers about a policy that offers testosterone to some troops while citing hormone care to remove others. https://t.co/tudzyZ09tN
— The Advocate (@TheAdvocateMag) July 22, 2026
From The Advocate:
Reyes took judicial notice of Hegseth’s July 15 announcement that all service members 30 and older, including women, would receive annual screening for testosterone deficiency.
The Trump administration has argued that transgender service members may be excluded partly because they require continuing medical treatment, including hormone therapy.
Hegseth, meanwhile, has announced that the military will routinely test older service members for low testosterone and provide the same hormone when doctors recommend it.
Reyes now wants the Pentagon to explain why testosterone can be treated as a tool of health and readiness for cisgender troops but as evidence of unfitness when prescribed to transgender men.
In court, government attorneys cited more than $52 million in military spending on care associated with gender dysphoria from 2015 through 2024. That figure covered nearly a decade, included treatment beyond hormone prescriptions, and amounted to an average of about $5.2 million per year.
Reyes dismissed the cost argument when she initially blocked the ban in March 2025. She compared that spending with the roughly $41 million the military spent on Viagra in 2023 alone and wrote that transgender health care, measured against the Pentagon’s enormous budget, was “not even a rounding error.”
Last month, a D.C. Circuit panel upheld preliminary protections for the trans service members who brought the lawsuit, finding that they were likely to succeed on their constitutional claims.
The Secretary of Forever Wars, Pete Hegseth, just announced they are going to provide hormone therapy to male service members who don’t have enough testosterone.
Let’s be clear: This is gender affirming care and it completely debunks all of Republicans’ attacks on trans people. pic.twitter.com/HBiAEYFY98
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) July 15, 2026
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