Malak el-Kashif, a political activist and transgender woman living in Egypt, was arrested at her Cairo home last March after participating in a protest and was then subjected to verbal and physical abuse at the hands of Egyptian authorities for months, according to Human Rights Watch. She says she was placed in solitary confinement at a men’s prison for 135 days, where she was refused medical treatment. “I suffered the worst verbal abuse I have ever encountered by police officers, and they forbade me from going to the bathroom for two days. They subjected me to a forced anal exam. They sexually assaulted me,” el-Kashif, 20, told the international human rights group. “Solitary confinement was the worst thing that ever happened to me; it was really affecting my mental health. I still have post-traumatic stress disorder and social phobia. I’m not the person I was.”