Edith Windsor

Edith Windsor (née Schlain; June 20, 1929) is an American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activist and a former technology manager at IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States case United States v. Windsor, which successfully overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and was considered a landmark legal victory for the same-sex marriage movement in the United States.

Personal life

Windsor, the youngest of three, was born on June 20, 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to James and Celia Schlain, a Russian Jewish immigrant family of modest means.^[1][2][3] During her childhood, her family suffered as a result of the Great Depression, and father lost both his candy-and-ice-cream store and their home above it.^[1][4] In school, she at times experienced anti-Semitism.^[2][5] Throughout school, she dated boys her age, but said later she recalls having crushes on girls.^[2][6]

She received her bachelor's degree from Temple University in 1950.^[1][7] During college, she met Saul Windsor. Their relationship ended at one time during the engagement when Windsor fell in love with a female classmate. However, after Windsor decided she did not want to live life as a lesbian, they reconciled and got married after graduation. They divorced less than one year afterward,^[2][8] and she confided in him that she longed to be with women.^[2][9] Shortly after her divorce, Windsor left Philadelphia for New York City.^[10] In 1955, she began pursuing a master's degree in mathematics, which she obtained from New York University in 1957.^[1][2][5] She then joined IBM, where she worked for the next sixteen years. During this time, she spent two semesters studying applied mathematics at Harvard University on an IBM fellowship.^[1]

Windsor met Thea Spyer, a psychologist, in 1963 at Portofino, a restaurant in Greenwich Village. When they initially met, each was already in a relationship. They occasionally saw each other at events over the next two years, but it was not until a trip to the East End of Long Island in the late spring of 1965 that they began dating each other.^{[1][5][10][11]} To help keep the relationship a secret from her co-workers, Windsor invented a relationship with Spyer's fictional brother Willy — who was actually a childhood doll belonging to Windsor — to explain Spyer's phone calls to the office.^[2] In 1967, Spyer asked Windsor to marry, although it was not yet legal anywhere in the United States.^[9] Fearing that a traditional engagement ring might expose Windsor's sexual orientation to her coworkers, Spyer instead proposed with a circular diamond pin.^[1][5][10]

Six months after getting engaged, Windsor and Spyer moved into an apartment in Greenwich Village. In 1968, they purchased a small house on Long Island together, where they went on a vacation for the following forty summers.^[1][2][5]

The couple often took trips both in the United States and internationally. They also entertained at their home frequently, with Spyer preparing meals, including an annual Memorial Day weekend celebration of their anniversary.^[1][2]

In 1977, Spyer was diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis. The disease caused a gradual, but ever-increasing paralysis. Windsor used her early retirement to become a full-time caregiver for Spyer, and the couple continued to adjust their daily behavior to accommodate.^[1][5][6]

Windsor and Spyer entered a domestic partnership in New York City in 1993.^[5] Registering on the first available day, they were issued certificate number eighty.^[1]

Spyer suffered a heart attack in 2002 and was diagnosed with aortic stenosis. In 2007, her doctors told her she had less than a year to live. New York had not yet legalized same-sex marriage, so the couple opted to marry in Toronto, Canada on May 22, 2007^[11] with Canada's first openly gay judge, Justice Harvey Brownstone^[5][10], presiding, and with the assistance of a filmmaker and same-sex marriage activist familiar with the laws in both countries.^[2] An announcement of their wedding was published in the New York Times.^[1][2]

Spyer died from complications related to her heart condition on February 5, 2009.^[2] After Spyer's death, Windsor was hospitalized with stress cardiomyopathy.^[1][5][6]

On September 26, 2016, Windsor married Judith Kasen at New York City Hall. At the time of the wedding, Windsor was age 87 and Kasen was age 51.^[12][13]

Professional life

While attending New York University, Windsor worked for the university's math department, entering data into its UNIVAC. She also worked as a programmer at Combustion Engineering, Inc., where she worked with physicists and the UNIVAC.^[5][14]

After receiving her master's degree in mathematics in 1957 from New York University, Windsor began work in senior technical and management positions at IBM in 1958.^[2][9] Her work at IBM was primarily related to systems architecture and implementation of operating systems and natural language processors. In May 1968, she attained the title designating the highest level technical position at IBM, Senior Systems Programmer.^[1] She received the first IBM PC delivered in New York City.^[14] However, the company rejected her insurance form naming Spyer as a beneficiary.^[5]

In 1975, IBM moved Windsor's group out of the area, and she took a severance package to focus more on her activism.^[5]

Activism

In June 1969, Windsor and Spyer returned from a vacation in Italy to discover the Stonewall Riots had begun the night before. In the following years, the couple publicly participated in LGBT marches and events. They also lent their Cadillac convertible to LGBT rights organizations.^[5]

Following her departure from IBM in 1975, she increased her involvement with LGBT organizations.^[2][5] She volunteered for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the East End Gay Organization,^[2] the LGBT Community Center, 1994 Gay Games New York, and helped found Old Queers Acting Up, an improv group utilizing skits to address social justice issues. She served on the board of Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) from 1986 to 1988 and again from 2005 to 2007.^[5][14]

Since her involvement with United States v. Windsor, Windsor has spoken publicly many times advocating for same-sex marriage. She helped Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Jerrold Nadler introduce the Respect for Marriage Act at a press conference in Washington, D.C. in 2011.^[5]

United States v. Windsor

Upon Spyer's death on February 5, 2009, Windsor became the executor and sole beneficiary of Spyer's estate, via a revocable trust. Windsor was required to pay $363,053 in federal estate taxes on her inheritance of her wife's estate.^[1][11] Had federal law recognized the validity of their marriage, Windsor would have qualified for an unlimited spousal deduction and paid no federal estate taxes.^[2][15][16]

Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses. She was barred from doing so by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7), which provided that the term "spouse" only applied to marriages between a man and woman. The Internal Revenue Service found that the exemption did not apply to same-sex marriages, denied Windsor's claim, and compelled her to pay $363,053 in estate taxes.^[1][2][5]

On November 9, 2010, Windsor filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking a refund because DOMA singled out legally married same-sex couples for "differential treatment compared to other similarly situated couples without justification."^[11][17] On June 6, 2012, Judge Barbara S. Jones ruled that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional under the due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment and ordered the federal government to issue the tax refund, including interest. The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in a 2-1 decision on October 18, 2012.^[18][19][20]

On March 27, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments. On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision declaring Section 3 of DOMA to be unconstitutional "as a deprivation of the liberty of the person protected by the Fifth Amendment."^{[2][11][21]:25}

Recognition

Sign thanking Edie Windsor at a rally supporting same-sex marriage

Windsor was honored by the National Computing Conference in 1987 as a "pioneer in operating systems".^[14]

On Windsor's 70th birthday in 1999, the Edie Windsor Fund for Old Lesbians was gifted to Windsor by Spyer and their friends. It is maintained and administered by Open Meadows Foundation, and provides grants to projects for and by lesbian older adults.^[14]

A 2009 documentary, "Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement", by Susan Muska and Greta Olfsdottir documents Windsor and Spyer's life and wedding.^[9][14] The DVD of the film contains a full length interview with Justice Harvey Brownstone, the Canadian judge who officiated at the Windsor/Spyer wedding.

She was the Grand Marshal of the 2013 New York City LGBT Pride March.^[22][23]

She was a runner-up, to Pope Francis, for 2013 Time Person of the Year.^[2]

On May 22, 2014, she received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Johns Hopkins University.^[22][24]

In June 2014 Windsor travelled Back to Toronto, the city where she married Thea Spyer, to receive an award at World Pride. While in Toronto she appeared on the CTV network's national morning show Canada AM with Justice Harvey Brownstone, the Toronto judge who officiated at her wedding.^[25]

On June 26, 2014, Windsor was featured on Logo TV's 2014 LOGO Trailblazers.^[22][26]

In 2016, Lesbians Who Tech initiated the Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship Fund.

Awards

Windsor has received numerous awards related to her work in technology and LGBT activism.^[14][22]

See also

• Defense of Marriage Act
• LGBT rights in the United States
• Same-sex marriage in the United States

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Edith Windsor.

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN