Hundreds of people have signed an online petition to have Bendigo councillor Elise Chapman be removed from office, after she tweeted an image depicting genital mutilation to a supporter of the Bendigo mosque.

Ms Chapman tweeted an image of young children with mutilated genitalia, linking the practice with Islam, and in the process has made national headlines and caused outrage on social media.

She published the picture in response to a Twitter user's support for plans for Bendigo's first mosque.

She accompanied the image of five children with mutilated genitalia with the text "Oh we could have this here too? Would you like your fanny sliced off?"

At the time of writing an online petition demanding her removal from office had 500 supporters, and Ms Chapman's twitter account had been suspended.

In part the petition says Ms Chapman has "continually embarrassed and degraded Bendigo in the eyes of the rest of the country".

"Her outdated and bigoted views on religion, together with the disgusting ways she gets them across, are bringing the entire town into disrepute."

The Federal Member for Bendigo, Lisa Chesters, said it is very difficult to remove an elected representative and can understand why a petition had been started.

"It's one way people can get together to voice their concern and opposition," she said.

Mayor, Federal Member condemn tweet

Ms Chesters said she was "embarrassed" by Ms Chapman's tweet.

"This is a town I love, and this is a town that all of us love," she said.

"After a very long week in parliament, coming home last night and sort of looking at my Facebook and Twitter and the outrage from people locally, I share the same outrage," she said.

"These are not the views of Bendigo... we have so many great festivals and forums where we celebrate diversity, we celebrate what makes this town great.

"It's a little bit of a sad day that we've made national and international headlines because of the extreme views of one person," she said.

Ms Chesters said she can understand peoples' disappointment.

"We place such responsibility, such faith in our elected representatives," she said

The council voted last year to approve plans for the mosque in East Bendigo, but an appeal against that decision remains before the planning umpire VCAT.

Bendigo's mayor Peter Cox said he has spoken to Ms Chapman and he hopes to resolve the issue at a follow-up meeting.

"I'm somewhat disappointed in Councillor Chapman and reinforce that it's not the view of the Greater Bendigo city council," he said.

"We'll take the matter further early next week." he said

The ABC has made attempts to contact Ms Chapman but were unable to reach her.