The Australian newspaper denies attacking one of the country’s leading gender dysphoria clinicians who says the publication has attempted to imply she harms children.

Associate Professor Michelle Telfer is director of the gender service clinic at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne which has treated nearly 1500 young people over the last decade.

In a submission to a Senate inquiry on media diversity, the adolescent medicine physician claimed the newspaper was attempting to destroy her reputation through deliberately misleading and distorted articles on the work of both her and her team.

“It used headlines and by-lines that generated fear and anxiety of trans children and young people, often portraying them as victims, with their doctors portrayed as dishonest, manipulative or incompetent,” she wrote.