Meet Obama's Newest Trans Appointee: Attorney Shannon Minter

Shannon Price Minter, a trans man and legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, was appointed Monday to a "key administration post" in President Obama's Commission on White House Fellowships.

Minter, who will now help interview and recommend "fellows" -- year-long, paid assistants to senior White House staff -- to the president, has already made a name for himself as a successful legal advocate for same-sex couples and LGBT families.

Minter first gained national recognition in 2001, when his work helped extend the federal court's legal recognition of same-sex domestic partners with a victory in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the partner of Diane Whipple, a lesbian mauled to death by a dog.

Two years later, thousands watched a national broadcast of Minter arguing for the right of Florida trans man Michael Kantaras to keep custody of his children. Though Minter had won the case in a 2002 trial, the Florida Supreme Court ultimately upheld an appeal in 2004, and the Kantaras family settled on joint custody a year later.

In recent years, Minter has helped push marriage equality forward. In 2009, he was the lead attorney arguing before the California Supreme Court for the overturn of Proposition 8, the voter-approved ballot measure that temporarily banned same-sex marriages in the state. Though Minter lost that case, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed a federal judge's decision striking down Prop. 8. Minter was indirectly involved in that federal case through his capacity with NCLR.

Continuing his work for marriage equality, last year Minter was one of the lead attorneys in the lawsuit that helped lead to equal marriage in Florida, according to the Miami Herald.