After Spyer passed away, Windsor had to pay a $363,053 federal estate tax on Spyer’s assets. Because spouses are exempt from the estate tax, Windsor filed for a refund from the IRS. However, her claim was denied because the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defined marriage as only between one man and one woman.
Windsor sued the federal government for her refund in 2010 with the help of Roberta Kaplan, a partner corporate litigator at Paul, Weiss et al.; James Esseks and Rose Saxe of the ACLU LGBT Project; Arthur Eisenberg, Alexis Karteron, and Mariko Hirose of the NYCLU; and Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. In 2012, the Southern District of New York ruled in Windsor’s favor. Prior to this, President Obama and the Justice Department announced that they agreed that DOMA was unconstitutional and they would no longer defend it in court. However, the House of Representatives appealed the case to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which also ruled in Windsor’s favor. The House subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court to review the decision.
After hearing arguments for the case in March 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Windsor on June 26, 2013 in a 5-4 ruling that found Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional.
Windsor was in New York when she learned of the decision. “I couldn’t hold back the joy,” she recalls. Windsor’s affable personality and SCOTUS win turned her into a gay rights icon overnight.
“I enjoy it thoroughly!” Windsor exclaims of the recognition she’s received. “It’s really like a love affair. It’s a mutual love affair, me and the LGBT community.”
Hundreds of people have expressed their thanks to Windsor, and nearly four years after her big SCOTUS win, people continue to recognize her on the street.
“This week, the weather was great in Washington Square [Park] and I sat down on the bench not for 10 minutes [when] a young woman came over and said, ‘Can I sit down here just for a minute please?’” she tells me. “And that was all. Windsor asked if she could take a picture with me, I said yes, we did that. And then she sent [me] a thank you note saying what a thrill it was and how she was having a miserable day and looked across the way and saw Edie Windsor sitting on a bench and it changed her whole life.”
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in April when I interview Edie Windsor for this profile. I sit at my kitchen table, waiting for her to join the conference call.
Just about on schedule, the jazzy hold music I’ve been listening to stops, followed by a “ding!” sound.
Judith Kasen-Windsor and Edie Windsor (Photo by Donna Aceto)
“Edie Windsor,” a voice on the other end says, responding to the conference line’s prompt for the caller to state her name. The voice actually belongs to Judith Kasen-Windsor, Edie’s spouse. She’s on the line to be a part of the conversation and to serve as an interpreter of sorts between Edie and me, since Edie is a little hard of hearing over the phone. This way, she can repeat some of my questions if Edie doesn’t quite catch what I say.
Edie is as sweet, sharp, and spirited as ever, and she maintains a busy schedule. “We’re out almost every night of the week,” Judith says of their community involvement. She rattles off a list of activities they have planned for the week: an Edie Windsor Dinner hosted by Lesbians Who Tech (which created the Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship) on Monday, a trip to see the Broadway opening of Paula Vogel’s Indecent (an adaptation of Sholem Ash’s play about Jewish lesbians) on Tuesday, and a dinner to benefit The Center on Thursday.
Currently, they’re particularly active in causes that support LGBTQ youth. “There are a number of groups dealing with gay kids who are sleeping on the street, who are struggling with school, and who are struggling with their parents. What I’m working on now is creating coalitions between these organizations.”
They support LGBTQ mental health initiatives too. In 2014, Callen-Lorde, a community health center serving LGBTQ individuals in New York, opened a mental health center named for Thea Spyer. An official dedication ceremony for the Thea Spyer Center was held last November, with Edie and Judith in attendance.
Edie thinks that Thea, who always loved how out and involved Edie was, would have loved everything she’s accomplished since the Supreme Court case. “I often look up and say, ‘Hey, Thea—What do you think of this?’ and she loves it,” Edie says, adding that Judith considers Thea a part of her family.
The secret behind Edie and Thea’s relationship success seems present in Edie and Judith’s relationship. “If you care as much for the quality of life of the other person as you care for the quality of your own life, you’ve got it made,” Edie says, as she’s said in many interviews before.
Edie and Judith married last September, so I ask them how newlywed life is. “I have serious things to say about that,” Edie deadpans. “First of all, she doesn’t drink coffee. She doesn’t drink coffee at all, but she makes the coffee every morning—that’s already an incredible note. There are other things like that that she does, but that’s symbolic of the whole work. Married life is wonderful.”
Edie never expected to remarry, but—despite all the attention she’s received over the past few years—she eventually confided to a friend that she felt lonely.
“It didn’t look like I was lonely, but I was lonely,” she explains. “And exactly at that time that I admitted to my best friend that I was lonely, this woman came along,” she continues, referring to Judith. “This beautiful, wonderful, loving woman came into my life and [just turned it] upside down in the nicest way and continues to do so. It’s sheer luck that she walked into my life.”
It’s a sweet sentiment, and I find myself beaming as I listen. “You’re making me smile a lot,” I tell them. And Judith, speaking for herself and for Edie, replies, “We’re smiling too.”
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
Save
