TESTO. Identities, diagnosis, and access to care through testosterone testing and treatment

Testosterone tests and treatment are increasingly advertised by companies and requested by patients.

The prescription of testosterone has increased by over 700% in Sweden between 2000 and 2020, and there is a lack of explanations as to why.

Some treatments are defined as crucial and offered within public healthcare, while others are requested but with uncertain medical evidence and guidelines that advise against routine tests.This interdisciplinary project provides an in-depth examination of testosterone testing and treatment and the experiences and implications among cis men with testosterone deficiency and trans masculine individuals.

By focusing on the two different groups, the study seeks to explore the nuanced experiences and societal perceptions surrounding testosterone.

It is a three-year project conducted in four phases and builds on interviews with care-providers and care-seekers, as well as text analysis of medical information.

It integrates ethnography and narrative analysis within a gender studies and biomedicalization theoretical framework.The project contributes with knowledge on boundaries between 1) private and public healthcare and 2) bodily optimisation and medical treatment.

Knowledge about sex hormones is dominated by medical research and biomedical understandings of the body; in contrast, this project provides a health systems and sociocultural perspective on testosterone testing and treatment that has high relevance also beyond the Swedish context.