Search form

Scroll To Top
Edie_windsor-crx633_0
2013

Out100: Edie Windsor

Lifetime Achievement

Photography by Danielle Levitt

The love story that changed America began when Edie Windsor met Thea Spyer in a New York City restaurant called Portofino. "We made love all afternoon and went dancing at night -- and that was the beginning," Windsor would recall decades later in the documentary Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement. For Spyer, the attraction was no less spontaneous: "We immediately just fit -- our bodies fit," she says in the film. That was in 1965, four years before Stonewall and nearly 50 years before their relationship became the foundation for the federal government's recognition of same-sex marriages.

The couple married in Canada in 2007, but when Spyer died in 2009 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis, Windsor was ordered to pay $363,000 in federal estate taxes that would have been avoided had their marriage been recognized by the United States. It took shrewd lawyers, clear-sighted judges, and one spry, platinum blond octogenarian to revoke that glaring iniquity.

SLIDESHOW: Out100 2013 Covers

When the 5-4 Supreme Court decision ruling the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional was announced on June 26 this year, Windsor was at the apartment of her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, to receive a congratulatory phone call from President Obama. And then she went to the Stonewall Inn to celebrate. This time, in contrast to 1969, the whole city was there to join the celebration -- a testament to the distance we've traveled. "The next generation is so far advanced over us," Windsor says. "I love that a lot of younger people now come out that would never have come out in the old days. Of course, they are born into a community already. They just have to discover it, whereas we were still building it."

Build it they certainly did. It's thanks to their efforts -- and to the power of love stories -- that we're at this long-awaited point in our history today. As for Windsor, she finally received that check from the government repaying the money it owed her. But she's been repaid in so many other ways impossible to count.

Photographed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on September 12, 2013

SLIDESHOW: See the Complete Out100 List

See All 2023's Most Impactful and Influential LGBTQ+ People
Artists
Disruptors
Educators
Groundbreakers
Innovators
Storytellers
Jimparsons-cr
None
2013

Behind the Scenes With Jim Parsons, Edie Windsor, Lee Daniels & Wentworth Miller

The four Out100 cover stars discuss what this year has meant to them

Curious how Edie Windsor handled those doves during her photo shoot? She held on tight! Watch exclusive behind-the-scenes video and interviews with the four incredible people featured on the 2013 Out100 covers.

SLIDESHOW: Out100 Covers Revealed

As Windsor explains in her interview: "I've become a kind of hero in the community...It's great fun for me, because we grew into a real community...If I had to survive Thea, what a wonderful way to do it. I live in this community full of love and joy, and I'm sure Thea would be proud and pleased as hell how I'm living."

Plus, don't miss Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons discuss fulfilling his ultimate dream of playing a Muppet in The Muppet Movie.

See All 2023's Most Impactful and Influential LGBTQ+ People
Artists
Disruptors
Educators
Groundbreakers
Innovators
Storytellers

Out.com Editors