Edie Windsor
She´s the icon of the marriage equality movement, a petite octogenarian who lent her name to the most important legal victory for same-sex marriage rights in U.S. history. Edie Windsor set out to recoup the estate tax the government levied when her wife, Thea Spyer, passed away and left Windsor her estate-a tax that straight married people don´t have to pay. Her determined fight against the ironically named Defense of Marriage Act made her a household name last June, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA´s Section 3, a statute prohibiting the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex marriages. Since then, six states have legalized marriage equality. Seven have ruled in favor of legalization, specifically citing U.S. v. Windsor. But it´s only the latest chapter in Windsor´s lifetime of groundbreaking, barrier-busting work. As a computer executive in the 1950s, she reached the highest technical rank at IBM as one of few women in the field. She has lent her support, especially in modernizing member databases for the digital age, to dozens of NYC-area LGBT organizations over the past three decades, including the LGBT Center, SAGE and Callen-Lorde. She´s still reveling in the DOMA decision, as she told The Philadelphia Inquirer in April. ″There´s something profound. It´s not just becoming an equal citizen; it´s more than that. It´s like your dreams as a six-year-old, suddenly they´re all real.″ -KL
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