Confinement at the Margins: Preliminary Notes on Transgender Prisoners in India

This paper is a preliminary inquiry into the status of transgender persons in Indian prisons. The authors argue that despite legal and judicial developments that have purported to correct 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. 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, according to the authors. This paper 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 centering the self-narratives of transgender prisoners is a necessary first step in understanding their experiences of prison and developing legal and policy responses.