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Before Stonewall, DOMA heroine Edie Windsor wondered: ‘I don’t see why I have to be identified with those queens’

Edie Windsor was far from the activist she would become at the time of the 1969 Stonewall Riots which marked the beginning of the modern-day gay rights movement.

‘When Stonewall happened, I was really this ignorant middle class lady who said "I don’t see why I have to be identified with those queens,"’ Windsor said in an interview posted Thursday by Marriage Equality USA.

But the woman whose lawsuit brought down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) soon realized how heroic the drag queens who took a stand against police raids were.

‘I mean those queens changed my life,’ she says. ‘And I saw them and I loved what I saw. It was the beginning of my sense of community.’

Windsor sued the US government when she was billed $363,053 in estate taxes after the death of wife Thea Spyer in 2009.

The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court and in June 2013, a majority of the court voted to gut key provisions of DOMA.

Windsor, 84, has seen some remarkable things happen since that landmark decision.

‘Suddenly the self-esteem is just flowing – I mean even these judges are saying we’re respectable. So we were coming out in droves and the more we came out, the more we saw each other and the more we loved and then more of us came out until we’re just this huge, joyous, loving community and I live in the middle of it and its great.’

Marriage Equality USA released the final part of Edie Windsor: In Her Own Words on Thursday in honor of the three-year anniversary of marriage equality in her home state of New York.

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3 Remarks

  1. I felt pretty much the same until AIDS hit.  When someone was needed to perform at a fundraiser, they were always the first to offer. They were always at the front of the lines when they were protests. When things weren’t politically correct there they were. And, I am talking about times when there was risk to their lives. You don’t have to understand them to respect them for the chances they took when others turned away.

  2. July 26th, 2014 at 9:24 pm
    K. Martinez says:

    I personally never had a problem being identified with drag queens, probably because I hung out with a lot of them in my early days of coming out back in the 1970s. We all come from different places and backgrounds. I’m very thankful to those early activists and for people like Edie Windsor and others who are activists for positive change today. Thank you, Edie Windsor.

  3. K.Martinez, Very true what you said about different times and places. I too never had any problem being friends with drag queens. I was lucky I came out at the time I did which was a more accepting time for a minute or two. Also true,much respect for Ms,Windsor,Harvey Milk,the Stonewall activist and all of the other early activist.

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