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Hegseth orders the Navy to remove the name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from the ship. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has instructed the Navy to take the unusual step of renaming a ship after a gay rights pioneer, according to documents and sources.

Military.com examined a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, the officer who has the authority to name Navy ships, which revealed that the sea service had developed rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk.

A defense official confirmed that the Navy was preparing to remove the ship's name, but added that Navy Secretary John Phelan was directed to do so by Hegseth. The official further stated that the timing of the announcement, which occurred during Pride month, was purposeful.

However, the memo received by Military.com stated that the name was done to ensure "alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture," presumably referring to President Donald Trump, Hegseth, and Phelan.

During the 1970s, Milk became one of the first openly gay public politicians in the United States, making him an icon of the fledgling LGBT civil rights movement. He was assassinated while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The message stated that the name announcement would be made public on June 13.

The new name for the Harvey Milk was not revealed, but according to the document, Hegseth and Phelan intend to unveil it onboard the USS Constitution, the Navy's oldest commissioned ship.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House Speaker who represents much of San Francisco, said in a statement Tuesday that the decision to rename the ship is "a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country."

The Harvey Milk is a John Lewis-class oiler, which are named after notable civil rights leaders and campaigners. 

The Navy is also contemplating renaming other John Lewis-class oilers, such as the USNS Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman. Marshall and Ginsburg were Supreme Court justices, while Tubman was a Black abolitionist who assisted slaves fleeing the South via the Underground Railroad.

Unlike the Milk, some of the ships under consideration for name have yet to be constructed.
Pelosi described the potential as "a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers so that all could pursue the American Dream."

"Our military is the most powerful in the world -- but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the 'warrior' ethos," according to her.

While certain Navy ships have been renamed after construction and christening, these are outliers, and renaming a ship is generally considered taboo in the Navy.


The most recent renaming happened in 2023, when the Navy opted to rename the cruiser USS Chancellorsville and research ship USNS Maury, both of which had Confederate affiliations, to USS Robert Smalls and USNS Marie Tharp, respectively.

Unlike the decision to rename the Harvey Milk, which was made on Hegseth's orders, the suggestion to rename the two ships came from a panel established by Congress to review Confederate-related names throughout the military.
Ray Mabus, the then-Navy Secretary, named the oiler after Milk in 2016. According to USNI News, Milk hailed from a military family and was commissioned as an officer in 1951. Milk later worked as a dive officer aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake during the Korean War. In 1955, as a lieutenant junior grade, he received a "less than honorable" discharge after being officially questioned about his orientation.

Milk then sought for political office in California, obtaining a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was assassinated in office in 1978, shortly after adopting legislation prohibiting housing and job discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Milk's death made him a San Francisco icon and an LGBTQ martyr. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
The USNS Harvey Milk is now undergoing maintenance and refurbishment in an Alabama shipyard, with completion expected by the end of June.