What did @drsalaswhalen actually say?
Dr. Salas-Whalen made one central argument: testosterone is not just a male hormone, and women deserve to benefit from it just as much as men do. Her exact framing was that "testosterone is also a female hormone" and that "we women get all the same benefits that you would think men get from testosterone."
The video uses a contrast device, showing culturally male images of testosterone versus images presumably meant to represent women, to challenge the reflex association between testosterone and masculinity. The implicit argument is that medical culture and public perception have both underserved women by treating testosterone as off-limits or irrelevant to female physiology. That is a reasonable argument, and it is not without scientific support. But the all-or-nothing claim that women get "all the same benefits" from testosterone deserves more scrutiny than a 60-second reel can provide.
Does the science back this up?
On the foundational biology, yes. Testosterone is genuinely a female hormone. Ovaries and adrenal glands produce it, circulating levels in premenopausal women typically range from 15 to 70 ng/dL, and it plays documented roles in libido, bone density, muscle mass, and mood. This is not fringe science.
The Global Consensus Position Statement on testosterone therapy for women, published by Wierman and colleagues in 2019 across multiple major endocrinology journals, concluded that there is strong evidence for testosterone improving hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in postmenopausal women. That is not a minor finding. However, the same consensus statement was careful to note that evidence for broader benefits like cognitive function, mood, energy, and body composition is still inconsistent or preliminary. So "all the same benefits" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The evidence base is not uniform across outcomes.
What did they get wrong (or right)?
Give Dr. Salas-Whalen credit for the core claim: testosterone is a female hormone. That is accurate and worth saying loudly, because clinician surveys consistently show that most women are never counseled about testosterone therapy even when it might be appropriate. Davis and colleagues (2019, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism) found that awareness and prescribing of testosterone for women remains low relative to what evidence supports.
Where the framing gets slippery is the phrase "all the same benefits." Men seeking testosterone therapy are often targeting libido, muscle, energy, and mood. For women, the evidence is strongest for sexual function and weakest for the other domains. Papalia and colleagues (2021, Journal of Sexual Medicine) confirmed libido benefits but found mixed results for mood and cognition. Saying women get all the same benefits without that nuance risks setting expectations that the data does not yet fully support, and it may push women toward higher-dose protocols with less-established safety profiles.
What should you actually know?
Testosterone therapy for women is legitimate medicine. It is not the same as the high-dose, muscle-focused use associated with male bodybuilding culture, and conflating the two has genuinely harmed women by making both patients and doctors uncomfortable with a therapy that, at appropriate doses, has a real evidence base.
The practical reality: no testosterone product is currently FDA-approved for women in the United States. Clinicians who prescribe it are doing so off-label, typically using male-formulated products at fractions of the standard male dose or compounded preparations. That is not inherently wrong, but it means patients are working in a space with less regulatory oversight and more clinical variability. The 2019 Global Consensus Statement remains the best evidence-based framework for guiding these decisions, and it recommends individualized assessment, not a one-size-fits-all approach. If you are a woman curious about testosterone, a conversation with a board-certified endocrinologist or gynecologist is the right starting point, not an Instagram reel.