Podcasts · unPAUSED with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Estrogen, Progesterone, and Testosterone: The Science of Hormones, Sexual Function, and Menopause

5 May 2026 · 1 h 21 min

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Tami Rowen, an obstetrician, gynecologist, and leading gynecologic surgeon at the University of California San Francisco, and an internationally recognized expert in sexual health and sexual medicine. Together they get precise about some of the most misunderstood terrain in women's health: estrogen, progesterone, progestins, and testosterone for women, what they actually do in the body, how the confusion around them began, and what becomes possible for women when care is evidence-based and not fear-based.

Dr. Rowen opens with something most women have never been told: that contraceptive estrogen and menopausal estrogen are fundamentally different molecules with different goals, different mechanisms, and different effects on the body. She walks through why ethinyl estradiol, the synthetic estrogen in most birth control pills, binds to the estrogen receptor 300 times more strongly than natural estradiol, why that matters for everything from blood clotting to testosterone levels to bone density, and why modern contraception is still valuable and worth defending even as we get more precise about how it works.

Guest links:

Dr. Tami Rowen (UCSF Health)

Dr. Tami Rowen (ISSWSH) Dr. Tami Rowen (Instagram)

Links in the notes 4

• https://www.ucsfhealth.org/providers/tami-rowen
• https://www.isswsh.org/component/content/article/299-tami-rowen-md-ms?catid=99&Itemid=469
• https://www.instagram.com/drtamirowen/
• https://thepauselife.com/blogs/the-unpaused-podcast/estrogen-progesterone-and-testosterone-the-science-of-hormones-sexual-function-and-menopause