Quote from: laurenb on November 08, 2017, 06:35:56 AM
I like to think of it as a racing stripe.... There's your daily Zen.  Sorry, couldn't resist

Omg that's hilarious lauren

Quote from: Sevenarella on October 12, 2017, 07:40:48 PM
Something I'm very interested in and which I think is under examined is the phenomenon whereby a person's penile raphe line will darken when undergoing m2f HRT. From http://t-vox.org/medical/hormone-replacement-therapy-trans-female :

"The line that runs down the underside of the penis and down the middle of the scrotum,
the peno-scrotal raphe (where the urogenital folds fused early in the womb), will darken."

The fact that the line darkens when higher levels of estrogen are introduced into the body indicate that it could be seen as a "gauge" of sorts of a person's estrogen levels. Given this, could it perhaps be the case that if a person has a dark raphe line before beginning any form of HRT, that they have a natively higher level of estrogen in their system/an imbalance between estrogen and testosterone?

I'm a cis male who has always had a very prominent and dark raphe. Aesthetically, I dislike this and if estrogen
therapy causes the line to darken, would that mean reducing estrogen and or increasing testosterone would cause it to lighten? Whilst I have no feelings of gender dysphoria/desire to be trans, I do think certain things indicate a potentially higher estrogen within (relatively low sex drive being just one).
Isn't the significance of estrogen causing a darkened raphe in transitioning people radically overlooked? There's hardly anything regarding this subject matter online.

So, what I'd be very interested to hear, from as many users here as possible, is this:

Did you have a dark raphe line prior to starting HRT?

Did your raphe line darken after HRT? Has anyone for any reason begun HRT then ceased, and seen the line darkening reverse?

Has anybody had estradiol tests prior to transitioning which revealed high native estrogen levels, and if so, did you have a dark raphe line?

And does anyone think that if high native estrogen levels can cause a dark raphe, could an anti-estrogen cause it to lighten?

Apologies for the rather mealy OP, quite a few questions there, I know. Any responses or speculation will be appreciated 

HI just to confirm yes I'm new. Now that's out of the way yeah it's funny I just checked for like the millionth time in my life and yeah I'm Caucasian and though down there it's like a tan the line is like a bruise dark (and I'm confident it's not from tucking). I'm pretty hrt and didn't see this line till I was oh 12-13 and now I'm 23 and finally realised who I was at 22 and opened up at early 23 after a long period of denial. Definitely something I would love to see research on to confirm 100%.