Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename the San Diego-built USNS Harvey Milk, a highly rare move that will strip the ship of the moniker of a slain gay rights activist who served as a sailor during the Korean War.
U.S. officials say Navy Secretary John Phelan put together a small team to rename the replenishment oiler and that a new name is expected this month. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the next name had not yet been chosen.
The change was laid out in an internal memo that officials said defended the action as a move to align with President Donald Trump and Hegseth’s objectives to “re-establish the warrior culture.”
It marks the latest move by Hegseth and the wider Trump istration to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion. And it comes during Pride Month — the same timing as the Pentagon’s campaign to force transgender troops out of the U.S. military.
The decision was first reported by Military.com. Phelan’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.
Longtime San Diego LGBTQ+ activist Nicole Murray Ramirez spearheaded a letter-writing campaign in San Diego to name a ship for Milk, following a yearslong effort to put Milk on a U.S. postage stamp. San Diego was also the first city to name a street after Milk in 2016.
In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Ramirez called the secretary’s decision “heartbreaking” and “un-American.”
“The LGBT community is part of the American fabric,” he said. “We deserve to have our heroes — our civil rights icons — honored.”
Ramirez recalled the joy and pride of LGBTQ+ veterans when the USNS Harvey Milk was dedicated. Now, he’s getting calls from veterans who are feeling hurt by Hegseth’s decision — one he says is a message of “hate and dismissal” from the Trump istration.
“They are absolutely sending the strong message that they want to erase our community,” he said.
Milk enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and served four years — becoming a diving officer, serving in the Korean War and being stationed in San Diego — before he was forced out for being gay. He later became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office.
Milk served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing and employment. It ed, and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone signed it into law.
On Nov. 27, 1978, Milk and Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor who cast the sole vote against Milk’s bill.
The 746-foot USNS Harvey Milk was built at San Diego’s General Dynamics-NASSCO and was christened and launched into San Diego Bay before a large crowd on Nov. 7, 2021.
During the ceremony, then-Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said he was compelled to speak “not just to amend the wrongs of the past, but to give inspiration to all of our LGBTQ community leaders who served in the Navy, in uniform today and in the civilian workforce as well, too, and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future.”
Mayor Todd Gloria also spoke, and nodded to how Milk made his own election and those of other gay officials possible.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that many of us who are currently serving in public office would not have been able to do that without Harvey Milk,” Gloria said. “He broke the rainbow glass ceiling.”
The ship is operated by Military Sealift Command, with a crew of about 125 civilian mariners. The Navy says it conducted its first resupply mission at sea in fall 2024, while operating in the Virginia Capes. It continued to resupply Navy ships at sea off the East Coast until it began scheduled maintenance at Alabama Shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, earlier this year.
While the renaming is rare, the Biden istration also changed the names of two Navy ships in 2023 as part of the effort to remove Confederate names from U.S. military installations.
The USS Chancellorsville — named for the Civil War battle — was renamed the USS Robert Smalls after a sailor and former enslaved person. And the USNS Maury, an oceanographic survey ship originally named after a Confederate sailor, was renamed the USNS Marie Tharp after a geologist and oceanographic cartographer who created the first scientific maps of the Atlantic Ocean floor.
Maritime lore hints as to why renaming ships is so unusual, suggesting that changing a name is bad luck and tempts retribution from the sea gods.
A top official at the San Diego LGBT Community Center called Tuesday for Hegseth to drop the plan.
In a statement, the nonprofit’s chief impact officer Gloria Cruz Cardenas called Milk’s legacy “a beacon of hope for millions in our community, including LGBTQ+ active duty service and military veterans.”
The Associated Press and staff writers at The San Diego Union-Tribune contributed reporting.
