Edie Windsor was 83 years old when she sued the United States government. The IRS had sent her a $363,053 estate tax bill after the woman she loved for 44 years died. That bill, and the lawsuit it sparked, ended the Defense of Marriage Act and made nationwide marriage equality possible two years later. This is how a retired IBM systems engineer from Greenwich Village became one of the most consequential plaintiffs in LGBTQ+ legal history.
Who Was Edie Windsor?
Edith Schlain was born in Philadelphia on June 20, 1929, the third child of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her parents lost their candy and ice cream shop in the Great Depression. She skipped grades in school, graduated from Temple University in 1950, and married a man named Saul Wiener that same year. The marriage lasted less than a year. Edie told him she needed to be with women.
She moved to New York and built a career almost no woman of her era was building. She earned a master's in mathematics from NYU in 1957, then took a job at IBM. By the late 1960s she was a senior systems programmer, the highest technical rank a woman at IBM had ever held. She helped build the operating systems that ran the company's mainframes. She did all of this while leading a closeted personal life, because being out in 1960s corporate America was a fast track to unemployment.
Forty-Four Years With Thea Spyer
Edie met Thea Spyer at a Greenwich Village restaurant called Portofino in 1963. Thea was a clinical psychologist, the daughter of a Dutch Jewish family who fled the Nazis to America in 1939. They danced together that night until Edie wore a hole through the bottom of her stocking. They started seeing each other quietly. Two years later, they were together for good.
Thea proposed in 1967 with a circle pin made of diamonds instead of an engagement ring. Edie wore it on her lapel for decades. Coworkers asked about it. She said it was a gift from a friend. It was the truth. It was also a careful lie of omission. She could not say "fiancée" out loud at work without losing her job.
Thea was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1977. The disease moved slowly at first, then faster. By the 1990s Thea used a wheelchair. By the 2000s she needed round-the-clock care. Edie became her caregiver while still holding down a consulting career. The 2009 documentary Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement captured the last years of their relationship and what it looked like to love someone for four decades when the law said your relationship was not real.
The Engagement Ring She Couldn't Wear
By 2007, Thea was given about a year to live. Edie and Thea decided to finally get legally married. Same-sex marriage was not legal in any U.S. state at that time, so they flew to Toronto. Canada had legalized marriage equality in 2005. Six friends came along to witness the ceremony. Thea was in her wheelchair, no longer able to stand. The Justice of the Peace asked the standard questions. They said yes. They were 77 and 75 years old.
For the next two years, they were married everywhere except the country they lived in. New York State recognized the Canadian marriage in 2008. The federal government did not.
Thea died on February 5, 2009. Edie suffered a heart attack a month later. She survived. And then she opened the mail.
The $363,053 Tax Bill That Started a Revolution
Thea left her estate to Edie. Under federal law, a surviving spouse who inherits from their husband or wife pays zero estate tax. There is an unlimited marital deduction. It is one of the most basic financial protections in American marriage law.
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$363,053 The federal estate tax bill Edie Windsor was forced to pay in 2009 after Thea Spyer died. A surviving husband would have owed nothing. |
The reason Edie got the bill was the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Section 3 of DOMA defined marriage for all federal purposes as a union between one man and one woman. It did not matter that New York recognized Edie and Thea's marriage. It did not matter that Canada had performed the ceremony. As far as the IRS was concerned, Edie was a single woman who inherited from a friend.
Edie paid the bill. Then she went looking for a lawyer.
U.S. v. Windsor: The Supreme Court Case
Roberta Kaplan, a partner at Paul, Weiss in Manhattan, took the case pro bono. Several major LGBTQ+ legal organizations had passed on Edie. They worried about the optics of an older, wealthy plaintiff. They worried about losing at the Supreme Court and setting marriage equality back a decade. Kaplan looked at Edie and saw the opposite. She saw a woman in her 80s, articulate and unbreakable, who had buried the love of her life and still got handed a $363,053 bill for the privilege.
The case moved fast for federal litigation.
| 1 | November 2010: The lawsuit is filed. Edie sues the federal government in the Southern District of New York, seeking a refund of the $363,053 plus interest and a ruling that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional. |
| 2 | June 2012: District court ruling. Judge Barbara Jones rules in Edie's favor, finding that Section 3 of DOMA violates the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment. |
| 3 | October 2012: Second Circuit affirms. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the lower court ruling. It becomes the first federal appeals court to apply heightened scrutiny to laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation. |
| 4 | December 2012: Supreme Court takes the case. The Court grants certiorari, agreeing to hear the case alongside Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenged California's Proposition 8. |
| 5 | March 27, 2013: Oral arguments. Kaplan argues for Edie. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously calls DOMA "skim milk marriage" during the questioning, comparing it to second-class status. |
| 6 | June 26, 2013: Section 3 of DOMA is struck down. A 5-4 majority, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing, holds that DOMA's federal definition of marriage violates the Fifth Amendment. Edie gets her $363,053 back. Married same-sex couples become eligible for over 1,100 federal rights and benefits. |
What Windsor Won and What It Means Today
The Windsor decision did not legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. It only forced the federal government to recognize state-issued marriages where they existed. But Justice Kennedy's reasoning, that DOMA's "purpose and effect" was to "demean" same-sex couples and their families, became the foundation for everything that followed.
Two years later, on June 26, 2015 (the exact same date), the Supreme Court issued Obergefell v. Hodges. That ruling required every state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize marriages performed elsewhere. Kennedy wrote that opinion too. He cited Windsor 14 times.
Without Edie Windsor's lawsuit, there is no Obergefell. There is no federal Respect for Marriage Act, signed in 2022 to protect interracial and same-sex marriages against future Supreme Court reversals. There are no Social Security survivor benefits flowing to same-sex widows and widowers. The whole legal architecture of equal marriage in America runs through one woman's tax bill.
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Edie's Life After the Case
Edie became an unexpected celebrity at 83. The 2013 New York City Pride March named her Grand Marshal. She was Time's runner-up Person of the Year that December, behind Pope Francis. She kept giving interviews until the end of her life, always sharp, always funny, always quick to remind reporters that she was talking about Thea, not about herself.
In 2016 she married Judith Kasen, a Wells Fargo vice president 51 years her junior. They had been dating for two years. Edie was 87. She liked to say she had been lucky enough to be loved twice in one lifetime.
She died on September 12, 2017, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She was 88. The American flag at every U.S. consulate flew at half-staff. President Obama wrote a tribute. Her funeral filled Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue.
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Common Misconceptions About the Windsor Case
MISTAKE 01
Windsor legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
It did not. Windsor only struck down Section 3 of DOMA, which had forced the federal government to ignore state-recognized same-sex marriages. Nationwide marriage equality came two years later in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015).
MISTAKE 02
DOMA was struck down entirely.
Only Section 3 was. Section 2, which allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states, remained on the books until Obergefell made it moot. Congress did not formally repeal DOMA until the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022.
MISTAKE 03
Edie Windsor was a lifelong activist.
She was not. Edie spent most of her career closeted in tech. She became an activist in retirement, mostly through her work on LGBT senior issues at SAGE. The Supreme Court case was her first major public legal fight, and she was 83 when it began.
MISTAKE 04
The case was about money.
Edie was financially comfortable. She did not need the refund. She sued because she wanted the federal government on the record stating that her 44-year marriage to Thea was real and equal. The money was a symbol. The recognition was the point.
If you want more on the people who paved the way for Edie, our profiles of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera cover the Stonewall era activists whose work made every later legal victory thinkable. Our piece on Audre Lorde traces the lesbian feminist tradition Edie was part of, and our story on Frank Kameny shows how an earlier generation of legal challenges set the stage for Windsor decades before anyone had heard her name. Edie inherited the legal architecture that Pauli Murray spent decades building, including the Equal Protection framework Ginsburg used to win Reed v. Reed.
FAQ: Edie Windsor and DOMA
When did Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer get married?
They married in Toronto, Canada on May 22, 2007, after Thea had been given a year to live. Same-sex marriage was not legal anywhere in the United States at that time. New York State began recognizing their Canadian marriage in 2008.
What was DOMA and why did it matter?
The Defense of Marriage Act was a 1996 federal law signed by President Bill Clinton. Section 3 defined marriage for all federal purposes as a union between one man and one woman, which blocked over 1,100 federal protections from reaching same-sex couples. Section 2 let states refuse to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
Who paid for Edie Windsor's legal case?
Roberta Kaplan and the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison took the case pro bono. The American Civil Liberties Union also joined the legal team. Edie did not pay legal fees for the Supreme Court case.
How did the Windsor case lead to Obergefell?
Justice Anthony Kennedy's Windsor opinion held that DOMA's purpose was to "demean" same-sex couples, which violated equal protection principles. Lower federal courts cited that language to strike down state marriage bans in the months that followed. By the time Obergefell reached the Supreme Court in 2015, 37 states already had marriage equality. Kennedy wrote that opinion too, citing Windsor 14 times.
Did Edie Windsor get her money back?
Yes. After the Supreme Court ruling on June 26, 2013, the IRS refunded the $363,053 in federal estate tax plus interest. New York State had already refunded its portion of the tax bill.
What was Edie Windsor's profession?
She was a senior systems programmer at IBM, one of the highest technical positions a woman held at the company in her era. She worked there from 1958 to 1975, then ran a consulting practice for years after that. She had a master's degree in mathematics from NYU.
When did Edie Windsor die?
She died on September 12, 2017, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, at the age of 88. She was survived by her second wife, Judith Kasen-Windsor.
Related: Windsor's 2013 DOMA win is what allowed Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss to legally marry in 2018 after more than 30 years together.
Edie Windsor finally got her apology in a courtroom. Alan Turing waited 59 years after his death for one of the only royal pardons in modern British history. Two queer people, two countries, one long fight for the law to catch up.
For more on how the 2015 marriage equality ruling came together, read Obergefell v. Hodges: The Day Marriage Equality Became Law.
For another federal policy chapter, read about Don't Ask Don't Tell, the 18-year military ban that forced LGBTQ+ servicemembers to lie about who they were until its 2011 repeal.
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Fly the flag Edie fought for. Every Pride flag carries the names of the people who got us here. Edie Windsor is one of them. |
