The White House has not made any announcement of the appointment, but two gay newspapers in Washington, D.C., reported September 23 that there is a new White House liaison to the LGBT community.

According to MetroWeekly and the Washington Blade, unnamed sources say the new liaison is Gautum Raghavan. Raghaven was initially appointed as a deputy liaison between the White House and the Defense Department. As such, he was one of more than 200 openly LGBT people appointed via the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund’s presidential appointments project.

Raghavan’s linkedin.com page indicates no involvement or attachment to LGBT groups, but at least one longtime gay activist, Winnie Stachelberg, credited him as having been “the point person” for many activists working to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The role of White House liaison to the LGBT community has not been held by a long list of people and only during Democratic administrations. The first de facto liaison was Midge Constanza, assistant for public liaison to President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

President Clinton made a more deliberate appointment of an LGBT liaison—first naming his personnel director, Marsha Scott, to the post, then naming politico Richard Socarides.

President Obama named Democratic gay activist Brian Bond to the position in 2009, but then changed the position to “Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement,” which would seem to suggest he handled more than LGBT interests. Bond left in July to join the Obama re-election campaign.

Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman to LGBT press, said Monday he had “no updates on staffing changes at this time.”