Not a lot of people know this…but transgender women have a superpower.

Unfortunately, this superpower does not allow us to fly up the Empire State Building or bring down Trump or bring forth world peace. In fact, the only thing it seems to do is bring on a triple dose of gender dysphoria.

I realized this transgender superpower as I lay in bed last night, taking a mental tour of my anatomy. Despite the satisfaction of a post transition body which – through art and science and sheer force of will – I have managed to shape according to my female nature, there is one part that refuses to cooperate.

It’s the lost property office between my legs where someone else’s genitalia got deposited. And never claimed. I’ve renounced that organ, I’ve ostracized it, I’ve pumped it with more estrogen than any organ can take, but that son of a bitch refuses to wither and die.

Initially, though, it doesn’t matter that this holdout of my male biology refuses to budge …because I have a special power. You see, despite its clear existence, I really feel like I don’t have a penis. I feel like I have a vagina. My rational mind knows that I don’t have one, but I’m able to astrally project myself into another body that does have one. And it was the same before I had breasts. Ever since I went through puberty, I felt I had phantom breasts…they were there…tingling and weighing down my chest…I swear it.

And that’s what our transgender superpower is: astral projection. We can literally inhabit another phantom body. And think about those married late-onset transsexuals with kids who’re old and bald and fat and hairy…I bet that it’s exactly the same for them. They can project out of their body and feel their true body. A female body. And they feel it as we all do…with a sense of reality that defies reality.

But that’s when the downside comes, because – not surprisingly – the pesky reality of our biological state sets in and the astral bubble is popped. Suddenly, your hand encounters the errant organ or the offensive body hairs and you remember: I don’t have a vagina…I have a penis. And that’s when the gender dysphoria kicks in… and it’s all the more gutting because the biological disgust you now feel was just preceded by a glimpse of oneness and female completion.

It seems to me, therefore, as I try to understand this brutal disease I suffer from called gender dysphoria, that one of the aggravating factors is this ability to project into another body. It’s like we’re constantly tripping to this Platonic world of ideal forms, only to fall back down to earth with a thud…

…and a double dose of dysphoria.

(Sorry about the down note of this article…but I’ve been down lately. GD sucks! Next week something more cheerful!)