"Trans[gender] phantoms are bodily sensations of gendered body parts that a person was not born with. [...] Phantom perceivers uniquely experience not only the awareness of what is missing [...] but also the physical sensation of it. [...] It has been theorized that this phenomenon [...] is analogous to aplasic phantom sensation, which is experienced when a person is born without a limb [...], suggesting that cortical representations of congenitally missing body parts may exist[. ...] About 18% of congenitally limb-deficient people report phantom sensation[. ...] 33–85% of amputees report phantom presence[. ...S]tudies on trans phantoms [...] suggest that trans phantoms are more prevalent than limb-deficient aplasic phantoms."
- Excerpt from pp. 1-2 of this academic article: S. J. Langer, Taymy Josefa Caso & Louisa Gleichman (2023). "Examining the prevalence of trans phantoms among transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse individuals: An exploratory study." International Journal of Transgender Health. DOI: 10.1080/26895269.2022.2164101 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366920201
Note: The academic article in question goes on to describe how the authors' study found that almost 50% of transgender people across all sexes and genders experience trans phantoms (pp. 1, 4). This means that trans phantoms happen within the same range of prevalence as amputees' phantoms, and are indeed more common than aplasic phantoms.
Some other notes about this article: This particular study didn't ask about how often trans phantoms are painful or not. However, it did find that the majority of trans phantoms had erotic sensation (pp. 5-7). It also found that many of the respondents had trans phantoms for as long as they could remember, or since adolescence (p. 7). The researchers cautioned the reader that "trans phantoms may not, and should not, be considered a requirement for recognition of TGD [transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender diverse] identities" (p. 8).
