Navy to Remove Harvey Milk’s Name From Ship During Pride
Pete Hegseth orders Navy to rename USNS Harvey Milk and other ships honoring civil rights leaders, citing a return to “warrior culture.”
In what is another mean-spirited swipe at the LGBTQ community by the Trump administration, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered the U.S. Navy to rename a ship bearing the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk.
As reported by Military.com, a memorandum from Navy Secretary John Phelan detailed plans to strip the USNS Harvey Milk of its name later this month.
According to the memo, Hegseth and Phelan had planned to announce a new name for the Milk on June 13 during a press event aboard the USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned Navy ship.
A Pentagon official confirmed the legitimacy of the memo but noted that Phelan was ordered to strip the Milk of its name at Hegseth’s request.
That official also said that the timing of the announcement — occurring during June, which is when LGBTQ Pride Month is celebrated — was deliberate.
The memo claims that the renaming is being done so that there is “alignment with president and [Secretary of Defense] objectives and [Secretary of the Navy] priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture.”
The memo’s assertion appears to echo commentary from socially conservative and so-called “anti-woke” pundits who routinely lament that acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ identity or naming things in honor of LGBTQ individuals is insufficiently “masculine” or “alpha.”
The John Lewis-class oiler was first named after Milk in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
Milk, a Naval veteran who served during the Korean War, rose to the rank of a lieutenant junior (O-2) before receiving a “less than honorable” discharge in 1955 after being questioned about his suspected sexual orientation.
Milk later became a gay rights activist, working on several campaigns, including opposing the Briggs Initiative, a ballot measure that would have barred out LGBTQ people from serving as public school teachers.
He made history in 1977 as the first openly gay person elected to public office in California, serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Tragically, he was later assassinated by a conservative political rival.
In 2009, Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Navy is also considering stripping the names of other ships named after prominent civil rights leaders and activists, especially those named after women or Black people, reports CBS News.
Among those targeted are the USNS Thurgood Marshall, the USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the USNS Harriet Tubman, named after two U.S. Supreme Court Justices and a Black abolitionist who helped slaves escape the South via the Underground Railroad.
While there are some examples of Naval ships being renamed following construction and christening, such instances are rare and frowned upon in the military.
The most recent occurred in 2023 when the Navy renamed two ships with names tied to the Confederacy.
However, unlike the decision to rename the Milk, which comes directly from Hegseth, the two renamed ships — the USS Robert Smalls and the USNS Marie Tharp — were recommended by a commission created by Congress to re-examine names tied to the Confederacy, which fought against the very country that the military represents.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who represents much of San Francisco, blasted Hegseth’s order, calling the decision to rename the Milk and other John Lewis-class oilers a “shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”
“The reported decision by the Trump Administration to change the names of the USNS Harvey Milk and other ships in the John Lewis-class is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“Our military is the most powerful in the world — but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” she continued. “Instead, it is a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.”
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