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The Trump administration moves to strip the name of civil rights icon Harvey Milk from a Navy ship. Critics worry this decision is part of a larger backlash against LGBTQ people. Steve Walsh from member station WHRO in Norfolk has the story.
STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: To one sailor, the USNS Milk was part of the bond with his Navy family.
UNIDENTIFIED SAILOR: I remember as soon as that happened, a lot of sailors, veterans landed up in Hillcrest, celebrated. We felt seen, recognized, that a trailblazer like Harvey Milk was finally being recognized.
WALSH: The lead petty officer is stationed in Norfolk. It's the current home of the ship named after the gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk. The sailor did not want his name to be used for fear of reprisals. He was stationed in San Diego on the day the ship was christened, on November 6, 2021.
UNIDENTIFIED SAILOR: Me and my group, we wore our Navy command shirt, had our little ball caps on, thinking we're cool, representing the Navy out here. It was a big deal for us.
WALSH: It was a point of pride in his Navy career. He left California years earlier to join the Navy to escape a religious family who he did not believe would support him if he came out. Recently, when stories emerged that the Navy plans to remove Milk's name from the ship...
UNIDENTIFIED SAILOR: It was a punch to my gut. I was actually on the phone with a friend, and she's the one who told me. I looked it up, and I started crying.
WALSH: He plans to finish his 20-year career in the Navy, but he says he has talked to junior sailors who say they plan to leave. After watching transgender troops being forced out, they worry this could be the beginning of a larger strategy to push LGBTQ troops out of the military.
UNIDENTIFIED SAILOR: How can I stand in front of my sailors, give them 150% of me, when at any point in time the coin can flip, and I could be next? I could be the next one that they don't want in, just for being gay.
WALSH: Before becoming a San Francisco supervisor, Milk was a Navy dive instructor in the 1950s until he was forced out because of his sexuality. USNS Harvey Milk was the second ship in the John Lewis class of Navy oilers. It was decided during the Obama administration that they would be named for civil rights icons. The names of other ships in the class are also under scrutiny, including a ship named after Thurgood Marshall.
CARLOS DEL TORO: If we politicize this process, which is largely what they are doing, then it turns into a tit for tat.
WALSH: Carlos Del Toro was Navy secretary when the Milk was commissioned in 2021.
DEL TORO: And so the next time you have a Democratic administration in place, for example, they could reverse the decisions made by the Republican administration.
WALSH: He says the decision by the Trump administration is different from the congressionally mandated process which required the services to remove the names of Confederate icons, which led the Navy to take the typically unusual step of renaming the USS Chancellorsville. An analysis by the Center for American Progress estimates there are roughly 79,000 LGBTQ people serving in the military. Announcing the decision during Pride Month seems calibrated to send a message, Del Toro says.
DEL TORO: It seems extremely vindictive to do it on that month. It's almost as if they want to impact pain on these individuals, emotional pain on them. And it's just very, very unfortunate.
WALSH: In a statement on the renaming, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell says, Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that all the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander in chief's priorities. There has been no announcement that the ship renaming has officially happened or what the new name might be.
For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh.
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