Testosterone, Hormones, and the Menopause Headlines: What's Worth Knowing

Let's start with a number that stayed with us: 1 in 3 women in peri or post-menopause experiences a significant loss of desire. According to the International Menopause Society, that's approximately 32% of women navigating this phase of life.

That is not a niche experience. That is millions of women quietly wondering whether something has shifted in them permanently - and often not having a single honest conversation with a doctor about what is actually happening in their body.

The hunger for answers is real. It's legitimate. And it's completely understandable that when something promises to help you feel like yourself again, you reach for it. Women have spent decades being dismissed, under-researched, and left to manage this transition largely alone. Of course we look for what works.

That is not naivety. That is self-advocacy. And it deserves to be met with better information - not judgment.

The Le Monde article does surface something worth paying attention to. Some doctors describe what's happening in the US market as a "menopause gold rush" - a confluence of genuine need, aggressive marketing, and a healthcare system that has historically left women without personalised, reliable guidance.

The investigation reports that some women are being prescribed testosterone at doses significantly above typically recommended levels. At higher doses, some side effects - including voice changes and increased body hair - may be irreversible. And nearly half of women stop treatment within a year.

This sits alongside what we also know: that testosterone, when responsibly prescribed alongside HRT and properly monitored by a qualified clinician, can offer real benefits for some women - on libido, on mood, on energy. The therapy itself is not the problem. The problem is the absence of the personalised, well-monitored clinical relationship that makes any hormonal treatment work well.

When influencers fill the space that informed, individualised care should occupy, women can end up in a system that wasn't designed to understand them. That's not a criticism of the women who tried something and found it helped. It's a reflection of how little the healthcare system has invested in understanding perimenopause and menopause - and how that gap has been filled, imperfectly, by those willing to talk about it openly.

What strikes us about the women described in the investigation isn't that they were looking for a shortcut. It's that they were looking to understand themselves.

Why does my desire feel different? What is actually shifting in my body? Is this normal? What can I do - with real information, not guesswork - to feel like myself again?

Those are exactly the right questions. And they deserve better answers than either a dismissive GP appointment or an unmonitored prescription from an online clinic.

At Now For Women, we don't offer hormonal treatments. We offer something different: a way to understand your own perimenopause - your symptoms, your patterns, and what the evidence suggests may help you specifically. Because perimenopause doesn't look the same for every woman. Your experience is shaped by your hormonal patterns, your lifestyle, your history, and factors that no one-size-fits-all approach can meaningfully address.

Naomi - our AI - assesses your symptoms across hundreds of dimensions and builds a profile that is entirely yours. The result isn't advice written for the average woman. It's insight built around you.

There is genuinely encouraging news in this area. In late 2025, the FDA removed the long-standing black box warnings from oestrogen-based treatments - a significant development after more than two decades of caution stemming from the controversial 2002 Women's Health Initiative study.

For millions of women who were told to fear hormones - or who were never offered them because their doctors were uncertain - this matters. It's a reminder that science evolves. That the conversation around women's health in midlife is finally, finally moving in the right direction.

It also means that navigating this landscape requires more clarity than ever - not less. More personalisation. More honesty about what we know, what we're still learning, and what is genuinely right for you and your specific picture.

You are not broken. You are not simply being "hormonal." You are navigating a profound physiological transition that has been underfunded, under-researched, and underrepresented in medicine for decades.

The fact that you are asking questions - whether through a specialist, an app, a podcast, or a friend who went through it first - is not weakness. It is exactly the right response to a system that has too often failed to meet you where you are.

Whether hormonal therapy is right for you is a conversation to have with a qualified clinician who knows your full picture. What we can offer is something alongside that: a way to understand what's happening in your body, to see your own patterns clearly, and to explore what the evidence suggests can support you - now.

The opposite of a gold rush isn't denial. It's clarity. And clarity, built around you specifically, is what we're here for.