This article argues that the State enacts legislative violence upon transgender persons by establishing a regulatory framework that is paternalistic, cisheteronormative and detrimental to transgender persons’ basic identity. The legislative violence inflicted on transgender persons is evident from the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 and Draft Rules, which violate the fundamental rights of transgender persons. Such violence also medicalises transgender identities under the guise of biological determinism. In this article, we critically explore State structures that monitor and survey trans bodies based on exclusionary cis-heteronormative standards, seeking particularly to regulate non-binary and non-traditional gender identities. The nation state itself is built through exclusion of various groups, leading to differential forms of citizenship. In the second part of the article, we explore recent efforts of the State to create citizenship structures hinging on documentary identification, through the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 -– National Register of Indian Citizens nexus. It is reasonable to predict that the majority of transgender persons and gender-variant persons will be excluded from citizenship due to lack of requisite documentation. Although civic citizenship of transgender persons is purportedly based on ‘equality’, the legal citizenship advanced by this nexus, is nothing more than performative citizenship. The legal framework enacted for the ‘protection of rights’ of transgender persons is excessively paternalistic in nature, ignoring the fact that transgender persons mobilise powerfully against the state to resist injustice and reclaim avenues of negotiation. Such resistance and negotiations are seen through protests, policy engagements and invoking of constitutional challenges, opening the door to alternative citizenship structures and changes in political participation.