Just days into Pride Month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is said to have ordered the US Navy to rename ships honoring select historic figures, including Harvey Milk, the trailblazing New York native and military veteran who went on to make political history by winning an election as an out gay city lawmaker in San Francisco a year before he was assassinated in 1978.
A memorandum from the Secretary of the Navy shows that the military plans to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, according to military.com, which first reported on June 3 that a defense official said Hegseth ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to take Milk’s name off the ship.
CBS News further reported that the Navy has listed several other ships that may be renamed, including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Lucy Stone, USNS Cesar Chavez, and USNS Medgar Evers.
The Pentagon would not confirm or deny the reports, but acknowledged “potential renaming(s).”
“Secretary 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,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a written statement. “Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”
Milk joined the US Navy after graduating high school, serving as a diving officer on the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake during the Korean War. He subsequently served at Naval Station, San Diego, where he was a diving instructor. Milk left the military with an “other than honorable” discharge due to his sexual orientation.
Milk is best known for his historic election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November of 1977, making him the first out gay person elected to office in the State of California. In that role, Milk championed legislation barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but his time would be short-lived: Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White murdered Milk and Mayor George Moscone on Nov. 27, 1978, prompting tens of thousands of people to march from The Castro to City Hall in his memory.
Milk’s defining legacy in San Francisco was predated by his ties to several parts of New York State, beginning with his upbringing in Long Island. He was born in Woodmere in Nassau County and graduated from Bay Shore High School. He attended what is now SUNY Albany and went on to work as a teacher at Long Island’s George W. Hewlett High School. He also lived in New York City, where he met his future partner, Joe Campbell, in the summer of 1956 at Riis Beach in Queens.
The news of the ship’s potential renaming comes at a time when the Trump administration is in the process of carrying out its ban on transgender service members from the military. The Supreme Court last month allowed President Trmp to enforce the ban while it moves through the courts.
Under the guidance issued by Hegseth, “service members on active duty and with gender dysphoria have until June 6, 2025, and service members in one of the reserve components have until July 7, to self-identify.” From there, the military plans to begin separating those service members.
