What did @thijsboermans actually say?
Honestly, not much. The transcript here is garbled audio, likely a transcription error, with the phrase "I'm going to make a video" repeated three times alongside what appears to be a noise artifact. The caption says "Getting there" with fitness and men's health hashtags, which strongly suggests this is a TRT progress update, probably showing physical changes over time. But we can only fact-check what was actually said, and what was said here is essentially nothing coherent.
That matters. A lot of TRT content on TikTok relies on visual storytelling, where the before-and-after body transformation does the persuading without a single cited study. The implicit claim is: "I started TRT, and look at me now." That kind of content can be more influential than any verbal health claim, precisely because it sidesteps scrutiny.
Does the science back this up?
If the implied claim is that TRT produces visible physical improvements, the evidence is real but heavily conditional. It depends on baseline testosterone levels, age, protocol, and what "improvement" you are measuring.
A 2018 meta-analysis by Trost et al. in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that testosterone therapy in men with confirmed hypogonadism, meaning clinically low testosterone, consistently improved lean body mass and reduced fat mass. That is a legitimate finding. However, a separate arm of the literature, including data from the Testosterone Trials (Snyder et al., 2016, New England Journal of Medicine), shows that benefits are most pronounced in men with total testosterone below 275 ng/dL. Men in the low-normal range see far less benefit, if any.
The problem with progress content is that viewers do not know the creator's baseline labs. Without that context, a transformation video could reflect genuine hypogonadism treatment or simply the effect of training harder and eating better during a medically supervised program.
What did they get wrong (or right)?
There is nothing specific to correct here because there were no specific verbal claims. That is not a free pass, though. Implicit claims carry real-world weight. Fitness-tagged TRT content with no clinical context contributes to what researchers call "testosterone optimization" culture, where men seek TRT for performance rather than documented deficiency.
A 2020 survey published in the Journal of Urology (Mulhall et al.) found that a significant proportion of men initiating TRT through telehealth and direct-to-consumer platforms did not meet clinical thresholds for hypogonadism. That does not mean this creator is in that group. It means the content format, a progress video with no lab discussion, feeds a trend with documented clinical downsides including suppressed natural testosterone production, infertility risk, and cardiovascular considerations.
To be fair: if this person has confirmed hypogonadism and is working with a physician, sharing a progress update is entirely reasonable. We just cannot verify that from what was posted.
What should you actually know?
TRT is a legitimate, FDA-approved treatment for hypogonadism. It is not a fitness hack, and content that frames it as one does a disservice to the men who actually need it and the ones who do not but might pursue it anyway.
Diagnosis requires two morning testosterone measurements on separate days, plus symptom assessment. The Endocrine Society (Bhasin et al., 2018, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism) sets the threshold for initiating therapy at consistently low total testosterone combined with clinical symptoms: low libido, fatigue, reduced muscle mass, and others. A single low reading or a desire to look better in a TikTok video does not meet that bar.
If you are watching progress content and wondering whether TRT is right for you, start with lab work, not TikTok. A telehealth provider can order appropriate testing and evaluate your full hormone panel before any treatment decision is made. Visual transformations are not evidence of medical necessity.