Tuesday, President Barack Obama has appointed the first transgender staff in White House, according to an announcement.

• First transgender staff in White House Raffi Freedman-Gurspan serve as an Outreach and Recruitment Director in the Presidential Personnel Office.

First transgender staff in White House Freedman-Gurspan’s appointment also drew praise from other racial and economic justice advocates and leaders, praising her work to empower members of the LGBT community.

According to NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling , “President Obama has long said he wants his administration to look like the American people. I have understood this to include transgender Americans,”she said. “That the first transgender appointee is a transgender woman of color is itself significant. And that the first White House transgender appointee is of a friend is inspiring to me and to countless others who have been touched by Raffi’s advocacy.”

This is one of several steps the Obama administration has taken to show support for the LGBT community. Last year, Obama signed executive orders that banned federal contractors from discriminating against employees due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

And in April, the President condemned therapies that tried to “fix” gay and transgender youth and announced the creation of a gender-neutral bathroom in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, home to many White House staffers.

“To really end the suffering transgender detainees face, the Obama administration must release transgender detainees for whom being in detention makes them a target of sexual assault and violence,” first transgender staff in White House Freedman-Gurspan said in June.

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.

The house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia Creek sandstone in the Neoclassical style. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage. However, in 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed Executive Residence in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829.IMAGE/wikipedia