San Francisco just wrapped up its Pride month, but the celebration ended with a gut punch. The U.S. government, under Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth, quietly scrubbed Harvey Milk’s name from a naval ship — a decision branded by officials as an effort to “depoliticize” military naming. But in the Castro, folks saw it for what it is: a homophobic erasure of queer history.
“This isn’t about some ship,” snapped longtime activist Cleve Jones. “This is about being seen. Being acknowledged. And they’re trying to wipe us out.” Milk, who was forced out of the Navy for being gay, later became the first openly gay elected official in California. Naming a Navy ship after him wasn’t just symbolic — it was redemptive. Now, even that gesture is being dismantled.
Milk’s Name Was Just the Beginning
The hit to Milk’s legacy didn’t come in isolation. School boards in conservative corners like Temecula have already tried to yank his name from textbooks. The Supreme Court greenlit parents to pull kids from LGBTQ+ inclusive education. Trans service members are being forced out again. It’s a full-on cultural rollback, and the message is clear: queers are not welcome in the narrative of American progress.
“It’s not subtle. It’s not accidental,” said Eric Berchtold, a bartender at the Cinch Saloon, one of the oldest gay bars in the city. “They want to erase us like we never existed.” Activists point out that while attacks have centered on trans people, gay and lesbian Americans who think they’re safe are deluding themselves. The erasure is coming for everyone.
The Danger of Complacency
“There’s a dangerous lie floating around — that this stops with trans people,” said historian Marc Stein. “But gay and lesbian folks should know better. The same playbook is being used against all of us.” For Suzanne Ford, head of San Francisco Pride, the worst part is watching younger generations assume their rights are set in stone. “Nothing is guaranteed,” she warned. “Not when the administration is trying to undo decades of progress.”
Even Craig Loftin, a scholar of queer history, is worried but hopeful. “We’ve seen this pendulum before — they push, we push back harder,” he said. But the swing right now feels particularly aggressive. “It’s like they want to rewind us to the 1950s,” he added. “And Harvey would be screaming from the rooftops if he were still here.”
History Isn’t Safe — Neither Are We
The renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk might seem small on the surface, but it’s just the latest salvo in a wider war on queer visibility. From anti-LGBTQ+ school policies to judicial decisions that strip rights by stealth, the far right’s agenda is crystal clear: silence, shame, and deletion.
“They’re not just rewriting history,” said Cleve Jones. “They’re trying to pretend we never existed at all.” For a generation that remembers the AIDS crisis and the beatings, that’s a terrifying echo. And for the young queers dancing in parades and waving rainbow flags, it’s a wake-up call: the fight isn’t over. It never was.
As Harvey Milk once said, “You gotta give them hope.” But hope, as we’ve learned, needs a hell of a lot of backup.