San Diego civic leaders held a press conference responding to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk.

Milk, who served in the Navy during the Korean War, became one of the country’s first openly gay elected officials, winning a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.

Mr. Milk’s name adorns numerous sites in the city, where he became a trailblazer for gay rights before he was killed in 1978. The Pentagon is considering stripping his name from a Navy vessel.