Edith windsor age

Judge Harvey Brownstone presided at the marriage of Edith (Edie) Windsor and Thea Spyer in Toronto on May 22, After Spyer’s death two years later, Windsor was denied equal inheritance rights because she was married to a woman. She sued the government, becoming the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and granted same-sex couples equal status under federal law.

Edith Windsor died on September 12 at the age of

: How did you come to officiate at the marriage of Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer?

Judge Harvey Brownstone: When same-sex marriage became legal in Canada in June , a number of prominent LGBT community leaders asked me if I would officiate at these weddings. Tens of thousands of same-sex couples at home and abroad wanted to get married, and there were few options for them. Other than the Metropolitan Community Church and the Unitarian Church, no religious institutions in Canada were then willing to preside at same-sex marriages. I felt it was incumbent on me as a gay judge to serve my community and I naively agreed to be the “go to” person. Within 2 weeks, I received 8, emails from all over the world, crashing the court’s server!

Among those seeking your services were Edie and Thea. What kind of impression did they make on you?

When I married them, they had been together for 40+ years.  Thea was in the final stages of Multiple Sclerosis and required a great deal of personal care, which she received lovingly from Edie. Thea’s doctor had told her that she was dying, and it was her last wish to get married in Toronto, which required the accompaniment of an entourage of devoted medical staff, caregivers, and friends.

For most people, marriage is a beginning; for Edie and Thea it was a culmination – a celebration and affirmation of their deep love, commitment, and devotion. Thea could not put the ring on Edie’s

American LGBTQ rights activist and technology manager (–)

Edith Windsor (née Schlain; June 20, – September 12, ) was an American LGBT rights activist and a technology manager at IBM. She was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States case United States v. Windsor, which 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. The Obama administration and federal agencies extended rights, privileges and benefits to married same-sex couples because of the decision.

Early life and education

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

Windsor received her bachelor's degree from Temple University in In , she began pursuing a master's degree in mathematics, which she obtained from New York University in 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.

Career

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.

After receiving her

Two summers ago, I went to Provincetown, Massachusetts, to visit Edith Windsor, the grande dame of gay rights, who died, on Tuesday, at the age of eighty-eight. She was a celebrity there, and as we walked down Commercial Street, past the rainbow flags and ice-cream shops, the stores selling leather harnesses and lobster T-shirts, she was frequently approached and embraced by couples who wanted to thank her for her bravery in the Supreme Court case United States v. Windsor, which toppled the Defense of Marriage Act and brought this country considerably closer to marriage equality. She was as glamorous as ever that summer, with her platinum bob and huge black sunglasses, enjoying the attention and the ocean, even though she was in the midst of a breakup. The problem with the relationship, she explained, was that the woman—who was thirty years her junior—simply could not keep up. (“She claims I demand sex,” Windsor said. “I told her, ‘Honey, I’m not demanding—I’m begging!’ ”) This did not surprise anyone who knew Edie Windsor. She was not your average old Jewish lady.

But then she hadn’t been an average young lady, either. At twenty-three, she divorced a “handsome and strong, yet sweet” man, because she wanted something else from love—an act of remarkable chutzpah in She went on to pursue a master’s degree in mathematics at N.Y.U. and to become a computer programmer for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and later for I.B.M., where she attained the company’s highest technical ranking, an extremely rare feat for a woman at the time. And in , in one of her proudest accomplishments, Windsor won the heart of a striking graduate student named Thea Spyer—a famously elusive catch in the city’s small but vibrant lesbian scene. Windsor succeeded in her conquest the same way she did in her court case: with a combination of tenacity, fearlessness, and charm. (She also had a significant natural advantage, she said: “If I didn’t have nice breasts, Thea and I never would have go

Edith "Edie" Windsor (née Schlain; June 20, – September 12, ) was an Americanlesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)rightsactivist and a former technology manager at IBM.

Windsor 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.

Windsor died in Manhattan, New York on September 12, at the age of

Early life and education

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

Windsor received her bachelor's degree from Temple University in In , she began pursuing a master's degree in mathematics, which she obtained from New York University in 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.

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