Civil Rights pioneer Harvey Milk’s legacy under attack by Trump adminstration. Harvey Milk, a prominent figure in the LGBTQ+ rights movement, served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. Milk served from 1951 to 1955.

He resigned from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant junior grade.  He served on the USS Kittiwake (ASR-13), a submarine rescue ship, as a diving officer. 

Milk was forced out of the Navy in 1955 after being questioned about his sexual orientation. He was given an “other than honorable” discharge. The Navy’s policy at the time was discriminatory towards homosexuals, and Milk resigned rather than face a court-martial.

Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 as a pioneer in the LBGTQ civil rights movement.  Milk, was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie. He 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 passed, 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.

Milk’s lasting impact as a pioneer of civil rights is still felt in modern times. Rights to domestic partnerships ultimately leading to gay marriage can be attributed to his pioneering spirit as leader of change.  As a result of his legacy a ship ship was christened in 2021 in his honor. During the ceremony, then-Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said he wanted to be at the event “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.”

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.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename the replenishment oiler 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 administration 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 outof the U.S. military.

“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on the renaming. “Any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

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.