A growing interest in the justice implications of sustainability transitions among politicians and other decision-makers as well as researchers has given rise to a wealth of case studies, analyses and theorisations of justice in transition governance. Many of these provide much-needed insight into the roles of (in)justice in processes of societal change, suggesting that the translation of justice into practice reaches far beyond the distributive question of who needs to be compensated or supported. In this discussion piece, we take a discursive perspective to unpack some of the tensions arising from the complex, normative aspirations of a just transition and show how discursive performances of the just transition and its negotiation in concrete policy terms hinder the realisation of its visionary potential. To do so, we synthesise findings from seven empirical studies to examine the discursive structures and strategies that interact in the making of a ‘just transition’ in Scotland and Sweden. In particular, we explore three sites of discursive struggle that represent, as we argue, fundamental challenges around justice in transition governance, namely questions related to (i) justice for whom, (ii) compensation and a focus on distribution instead of recognition, and (iii) justice versus (carbon) effectiveness of governance interventions. Our analysis traces how these sites of struggle are constituted by an interplay between discursive manifestations of both ‘justice’ and ‘transition’ as well as closely related concepts such as ‘freedom’, which together work to stifle a more diverse, open, and change-oriented societal debate on the meaning of a just transition.