A Kuwaiti transgender woman was imprisoned after she spoke out on the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of police officers in a men's prison, according to a social media campaign for her freedom.

In an series of Snapchat videos, Maha Al-Mutairi, a Kuwaiti transgender woman, said she was detained due to her gender identity and jailed in a men's prison, where she was sexually assaulted and raped by police officers.

"I was born a girl, you imprisoned me as a girl and I will die as a girl," she said. She said she would have preferred being placed in solitary confinement or a mental hospital over a men's prison that is "filled with sexual assault". Al-Mutari said she was also beaten severely by authorities to the point of needing stitches.

"All this because I'm a girl?" she said. "This is none of your business. ... God created me as a girl." Al-Mutairi added that a transgender friend of hers who was also imprisoned over her gender identity died by suicide upon her release from jail.

"She killed herself because she's a woman who can't live in Kuwait and everyone conceals her suicide from the public," she said. "Why would you do this to us?" At the end of the video, Al-Mutairi said she was on her way to surrender herself to authorities. She added that if she would be subjected to the same treatment in prison, she would die by self-immolation.

"I am the first transgender person in Kuwait to publicly announce she is a woman," she said. "And I am not afraid of anyone."

Social media posts, hashtags and a petition calling for Al-Mutairi's freedom circulated widely, as did criticism of Kuwait's human rights record.

"LGBT people, especially the trans community are extremely abused in Kuwait," tweeted one social media user.

"The LGBT community exists in all communities, you cannot keep oppressing us and abusing us for things we cannot control such as our identities," read another tweet. "A different gender or sexual orientation is not a threat or violent, what they're doing to us is." Read more via New Arab