The Pentagon is doling out erection pills in record numbers while banning gender-affirming care

Newly released data reveals that a record-breaking amount of sex-enhancing medications were prescribed to active duty troops in 2025.

In a recent New York Post article with a headline proclaiming “U.S. soldiers having more sex than ever under President Trump,” new data revealed that 108,332 prescriptions were dispensed last year to active military personnel for erectile dysfunction. The Post obtained the official statistics from the Defense Health Agency through a Freedom of Information Act request.

This marks an all-time high for erectile pill prescriptions within the military, but only slightly higher than the previous record of 108,323 prescriptions set in 2024. It’s also a significant jump (16.5 percent) from the 92,996 prescriptions given for such drugs under Biden in 2021.

The wider military community, including veterans and dependents of servicepeople, actually showed even higher numbers, with a reported 639,355 sex-enhancing prescriptions given in 2025. This is a slight spike from the 627,121 prescriptions recorded in 2024.

These staggering numbers come at a time when the U.S. is upholding a policy that prevents military clinics or insurance from covering gender-affirming care, including for veterans. Arguably, erectile enhancing drugs for cisgender men could be considered gender-affirming care, leaving LGBTQ+ advocates to point out the current policy’s hypocrisy.

In February, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a new rule that bans gender-affirming medical care for trans service members, as well as prevents new enlistments of individuals with a “history of gender dysphoria,” making it the harshest anti-trans military order yet.

The policy is currently being challenged in court in a suit brought about by three service members and their families. In the case Doe v. Department of Defense, the plaintiffs state that they’d been obtaining care for their transgender children through the military health system for over a decade before the Trump administration prohibited it. The case was filed in September of last year in Maryland’s U.S. District Court by GLAD Law and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR) on behalf of the families.

“President Trump has illegally overstepped his authority by abruptly cutting off necessary medical care for military families,” said NCLR’s legal director, Shannon Minter, in a recent statement. “This lawless directive is part of a dangerous pattern of this administration ignoring legal requirements and abandoning our servicemembers.”

The policy that currently bans trans people from enlisting in the military at all is also being challenged in court in two major cases, Talbott v. United States and Shilling v. United States.

All cases are still ongoing.