Strip the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from a Navy ship? California leaders are furious

California leaders denounced reports Tuesday that the Trump administration is preparing to strip the name of slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk from a naval ship honoring his legacy, calling it a slap in the face for the LGBTQ+ community just as Pride month begins.

Milk was elected as a San Francisco supervisor in the 1970s, becoming one of the first out elected officials in the country. After he was assassinated in San Francisco City Hall in 1978, he became an icon of the gay rights movement, with images of his face becoming synonymous with the struggle for gay rights.

Milk had served in the Navy before becoming an activist and political figure, and LGBTQ+ advocates and service members fought for years to have his legacy formally recognized by the Navy.

Both CBS News and the outlet Military.com first reported Tuesday afternoon that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, an oiler built in San Diego as part of a series of vessels named for civil rights leaders. It was launched in 2021.

The Pentagon would not confirm or deny that the ship would be renamed.

In a statement to The Times, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Hegseth “is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all [Department of Defense] installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” and that “any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

California

Navy oiler Harvey Milk launched in San Diego amid cheers and heartache

The ship bears the name of the slain activist and San Francisco politician who fought for gay rights.

Nov. 7, 2021

The Pentagon would not say whether such a review had been launched for the USNS Harvey Milk. The Navy referred questions to the Pentagon.

The removal of Milk’s name would be in line with a broader push by Hegseth and other leaders in the Trump administration to remove formal acknowledgments of queer rights and other programs or messages promoting diversity, equity and inclusion across the federal government.

Renaming naval ships is rare, but it has happened before, including after a congressional commission recommended names linked to the Confederacy be removed a couple years ago.

In addition to the USNS Harvey Milk, CBS and other outlets reported that officials were also considering renaming a number of other ships in the Navy’s “John Lewis-class.” The class is named for the Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights leader turned longtime politician, and all of the boats are named for civil rights leaders, activists or historic figures.

Other boats being considered for renaming, according to those outlets, include the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Lucy Stone, USNS Cesar Chavez and USNS Medgar Evers.

Leaders in California — where Milk is often hailed as a hero — were quick to denounce the idea of stripping his name from the vessel.

Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on the social media platform X that Trump’s “assault on veterans has hit a new low.”

San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk speaks to reporters in October 1978, weeks before he was assassinated.

(James Palmer / Associated Press)

Trump and Hegseth have also issued a sweeping ban on transgender people serving in the military.

“Harvey Milk wasn’t just a civil rights icon — he was a Korean War combat veteran whose commander called him ‘outstanding,’” Newsom said. “Stripping his name from a Navy ship won’t erase his legacy as an American icon, but it does reveal Trump’s contempt for the very values our veterans fight to protect.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) echoed Newsom with her own comment on X.

“Our military is the most powerful in the world — but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” she wrote. “It is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who is gay and once represented the same district as Milk on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said in an interview with The Times that the move was all “part of Trump’s systematic campaign to eliminate LGBTQ people from public life.”

“They want us to go away, to go back in the closet, not to be part of public life,” Wiener said. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

After graduating from college, Milk enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and was stationed in San Diego. According to the Harvey Milk Foundation, he resigned at the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1955 “after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation.”

He moved to San Francisco in 1972, opened a camera shop on Castro Street and quickly got into politics — rallying the growing local gay community to fight for rights and build strategic alliances with other groups, including organized labor and the city’s large Asian and Pacific Islander community.

Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977 and helped lead efforts to defeat a 1978 ballot initiative that would have barred gay and lesbian people from teaching in public schools statewide — a major political win for the LGBTQ+ community.

That same year, Milk was assassinated alongside Mayor George Moscone at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. His killing cemented his status as an icon of the gay rights movement.

Wiener called Milk “an absolute hero” who “died for our community” and deserves the honor of having a naval vessel named after him.

“A group of LGBTQ veterans worked for years and years to achieve this goal of naming a ship for Harvey, and to have that taken away so casually, right during Pride month, is heartbreaking and painful,” Wiener said.

Removing his name would mean more than scrubbing a stenciling off the side of a ship, Wiener said, “especially now with the attacks on our community, and so many young LGBTQ people [seeing] so much negativity towards our community.”

Milk was a “very visible role model for young queer people, and he gave people hope in a way that hadn’t happened before from any high-profile queer leader, and he was murdered because of his visibility and leadership for our community,” Wiener said, and for young queer people today “to see the name of a gay man on the side of a military vessel, it’s very, very powerful.”

U.S. officials first announced in 2016 that a ship would be named for Milk, along with others in the Lewis class.

At an event marking the start of construction of the ship in 2019, Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk said the naming of the ship after his uncle “sends a global message of inclusion” that said not just that the U.S. will “tolerate everyone” but that “we celebrate everyone.”