When in 1969, Shirley Hartley learned that only 10 percent of honorees in the Hall of Great Americans were female, she helped create the National Women’s Hall of Fame to make sure American women were properly recognized. Inaugural inductees in 1973 included trailblazers such as Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Amelia Earhart, Helen Keller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Tubman. In other words: a stacked crew.

Inductees since have been activists, authors, athletes, scientists, and more. Although honorees tend to be more progressive, each of them greatly influenced American culture, academia, or politics. Reasons why the honorees were selected vary. Criteria for selecting honorees do not: “Nominees may be contemporary or historical, but must be citizens of the United States, either by birth or naturalization. Their contribution(s) should be of value to society, be of national and/or global importance and of enduring value,” the NWHF says on its website.

Historically the hall has only issued awards to women — as its name, mission, and founding principles would suggest it do. But this week, the NWHF formally inducted Sandy Stone, the founder of the academic field of transgender studies and a biological male, into the hall of fame.

“It’s a great honor and a great responsibility,” Stone said. “Somebody has to go first.”

The “super thrilling” honor was “emotionally loaded” for Stone.

“F*** the structure. Make your structure. Build community. Build solidarity. Help each other,” Stone encouraged trans activists. “You can put together networks. At this point, what you need to do medically isn’t a secret any more. It doesn’t belong to some occult group of doctors in nowhere, California. Everybody knows roughly what you need to do.”

“Get underground networks going. Get those drugs. Get the materials. Get the skills,” Stone continued. “Get the schooling. Get the knowledge you need. Share it around the community. Say ‘to hell’ with the traditional medical structure of the legal sector. Just do it.”

Thus the organization founded to recognize women when men otherwise wouldn’t now platforms men because women . . . don’t cut it anymore? Shameful.