Transgender persons in India have historically been subject to violence and erasure through laws that have criminalised their lives and livelihoods. Despite recent legal and judicial developments that have purported to correct these historical wrongs, transgender persons’ relationship with the penal state continues to be fraught, evident in laws and practices that either target them, or address them as a distinct category, or neglect them entirely. One such site of legal and policy exclusion is a space that is itself relegated to the peripheries of public thought – the prison. Transgender persons in prison are likely to face particular harms on the basis of their gender identity that are compounded by harms that characterise the conditions of confinement. This paper is a preliminary inquiry into the status of transgender persons in Indian prisons. It demonstrates that while transgender persons are policed, criminalised, and made ‘hyper-visible’ in public spaces, they are ‘invisible’ in laws, rules, and practices that are framed for prison management. Further, it argues that centring the self-narratives of transgender prisoners is a necessary first step in understanding their experiences of prison and developing legal and policy responses.