Celebrated each February across the UK, LGBT+ History Month provides an opportunity to remember and acknowledge the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people to society.

With this year’s event seeking to champion those who have made important advances and breakthroughs in science and innovation, the BMA has highlighted the personal stories and achievements of four figures from the LGBT+ community.

By retelling these stories, the association aims to honour the achievements of these individuals while also challenging the silence and erasure, which has historically seen the roles of LGBT+ people hidden.

Growing up in an era in which access to the medical profession was almost exclusively reserved for men, Louise Pearce showed unimaginable determination and vision in her quest to become a physician.

Born in Massachusetts in 1885, Dr Pearce first graduated from Stanford with a degree in physiology in 1907, before moving on to study medicine in Boston and later Johns Hopkins medical school where she earned her medical qualification in 1912.

Following her appointment to the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, Dr Pearce was part of a team of physicians working towards an effective treatment for the parasitic disease trypanosomiasis, more commonly known as sleeping sickness.

Travelling to what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr Pearce worked with local hospitals to establish medical trials for a new treatment known as tryparsamide and later helped to treat patients successfully.

Her career also saw her engaged in research into treatments for syphilis and cancer.

Although she did not publicly disclose her sexuality, Dr Pearce lived with fellow physician Sara Josephine Baker and author Ida Wylie for many years.

The trio were part of Heterodoxy; a feminist debating society whose membership included many lesbian and bisexual women.

‘I am a homosexual; I am a psychiatrist.’

These were the stark and unapologetic opening words delivered by John E Fryer in his seminal address to the APA (American Psychiatric Association) annual conference in 1972.

Born in Kentucky in 1937, Dr Fryer went on to gain his medical degree from Vanderbilt University in 1962, with ambitions to pursue a career in psychiatry. Although he would go on to achieve lasting success in his chosen specialty, his journey to becoming a psychiatrist was a difficult and dangerous one.

Upon gaining his medical qualification, Dr Fryer was twice compelled to abandon his residency training in psychiatry, firstly owing to depression at having to hide his sexuality and also expulsion from another university after it was discovered he was gay.

Practising at a time when same sex attraction was listed as a mental illness in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), Dr Fryer was the only gay psychiatrist willing to discuss his experiences as part of a motion to the APA.

He famously delivered his speech under the pseudonym of ‘Dr H Anonymous’ and while heavily disguised and using a voice modulator, such was the risk that identification posed to his medical licence.

Dr Fryer described how, in forcing doctors and patients alike to conceal their true selves from others, homophobia ultimately deprived everyone of parts of their ‘honest humanity’.

In the year following his conference address, the APA removed homosexuality from the DSM, a move which proved to be a huge step forward in the fight for LGBT+ equality.

As a black, gay man practising medicine during the early 20th century, Cecil Belfield Clarke (pictured above) was a truly pioneering figure in UK healthcare.

Born in Barbados in 1894, Dr Clarke’s journey into medicine began when he secured a scholarship to study medicine at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

Arriving in England just as the First World War began to engulf Europe, he completed his studies and went on to establish a medical practice in south London.

As one of the UK’s first black doctors, Dr Clarke faithfully ran his practice and served generations of his local community for almost half a century, including during the terror and destruction of the Blitz of 1940-41.

Outside of medicine, Dr Clarke was a firm advocate and activist for the civil rights movement and was undoubtedly an inspirational figure for future generations of black doctors in the UK.

Despite sexual relations between men remaining a criminal offence for almost his entire life while living in the UK, Dr Clarke was able to share his life with his long-term partner Edward Walter.

Perhaps his greatest legacy in medicine, however, is the eponymous ‘Clarke’s Rule’ – a simple formula still used to this day, which determines the safe dosage of medication to give to a child based on the equivalent amount which would be given to an adult.

Born in Jamaica in 1944, Barbara Burford’s life was shaped by the movement and change of a new and uncertain postwar world.

Yet, despite these challenges, she determined to leave a lasting mark upon those who knew her and upon the very health service which, like her, emerged from the ashes of war.

Following her family’s emigration to London in 1955, Dr Burford attended Dalston County Grammar school before eventually going on to study medicine at the University of London.

Specialising in electron microscopy, Dr Burford began her career in the NHS in the 1960s working in postgraduate teaching positions at Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Institute of Child Health.

Through her research she was able to make and support important advances in paediatric medicine, particularly in the then nascent field of organ transplantation.

Outside of medicine, Dr Burford was a prominent and outspoken activist in the black feminist movement and found acclaim as a celebrated author, poet and playwright.

Her contributions and commitment to the NHS were not simply confined to clinical research, however. In 1999 she was appointed as the director of equality and diversity at the Department of Health.

Drawing on her own life and professional experiences, Dr Burford used her role to develop and implement a series of measures and programmes designed to challenge prejudice and promote equality and representation in the NHS.

Dr Burford shared her life with her partner Joy Howard for more than 20 years, with the couple formalising their union via a civil partnership in 2007, just three years before Dr Burford’s death.