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

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.

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.