Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed the U.S. Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, stripping the vessel of its dedication to the gay rights icon in a move tied to current military leadership priorities and timed to coincide with Pride Month, Military.com reported.
A memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, reviewed by Military.com, details rollout plans for renaming the oiler-class ship. The directive was issued by Hegseth and executed by Navy Secretary John Phelan. A defense official confirmed the order, stating the announcement’s timing — scheduled for June 13 — was intentional and meant to align with “Pride Month.”
The memo explains that the renaming is meant to ensure “alignment with the president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture,” referencing President Donald Trump, Hegseth, and Phelan.
After being posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, Harvey Milk became one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history when he won a seat on San Francisco’s board of supervisors in 1977. He was assassinated in 1978, shortly after spearheading a landmark ordinance banning housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Milk served in the Navy during the Korean War as a diving officer aboard the USS Kittiwake, leaving the service in 1955 as a lieutenant junior grade with a “less than honorable” discharge after being questioned about his sexual orientation.
The USNS Harvey Milk is part of the John Lewis class of fleet oilers traditionally named for prominent civil rights figures. The ship was christened in 2021 and is currently finishing maintenance in Alabama, with work expected to conclude by the end of June.
A new name has not yet been publicly disclosed. However, the memo indicates that Hegseth and Phelan plan to unveil it aboard the USS Constitution, the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship.
The decision has sparked criticism from Democrat lawmakers. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., representing much of San Francisco, issued a statement Tuesday calling the move “a surrender of a fundamental American value: to honor the legacy of those who worked to build a better country.”
CBS News reported the Navy is also considering renaming other John Lewis-class oilers, including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman. While the Milk has already been commissioned, others have not yet been completed.
Pelosi condemned the broader renaming efforts as “a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase 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,” she said.
Renaming Navy ships after commissioning is highly unusual and considered taboo.
The last such changes occurred in 2023 when the Navy renamed two vessels named initially after Confederate figures — USS Chancellorsville and USNS Maury — to USS Robert Smalls and USNS Marie Tharp. That decision, however, came from a congressional commission, not direct orders from military leadership.
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