Go looking for information about testosterone online and you'll run into two competing narratives almost immediately, and it's worth naming both clearly, because neither one is actually trying to inform you.
The scare story
This version treats testosterone itself as inherently dangerous — a "steroid" in the criminal, back-alley sense, something only bodybuilders and cheaters touch. This story ignores an inconvenient fact: testosterone is a hormone your body has produced since before you were born, prescribed legitimately by endocrinologists every single day for men with diagnosed clinical need, under medical supervision, without their lives falling apart.
The sales story
This version is subtler and, in some ways, more dangerous, because it doesn't look like a sales pitch — it looks like advice from a peer. It shows up as an influencer's transformation, a "coach's" DM, an online clinic's five-minute questionnaire that ends in a prescription with almost no actual screening.
Neither story is built to inform you. One is built to scare you. The other is built to sell you something.
What's actually true, in between
The honest picture doesn't fit neatly into either narrative, which is exactly why it gets drowned out by both of them. Testosterone is a genuinely important hormone with real, well-documented medical uses and real, well-documented risks when used outside of medical supervision or without a genuine clinical need. It deserves neither blanket fear nor blanket enthusiasm.