One of the prime corners in New York — Fifth Avenue and Washington Square North — was co-named June 20 for marriage equality pioneer Edie Windsor and her spouse who predeceased her, Thea Spyer. The ceremony, emceed by Village-Chelsea Council Member Erik Bottcher, drew the state’s top women leaders who spoke of their close relationships with or deep regard for Windsor, whose lawsuit led the Supreme Court to strike down the key part of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.
“Women willing to break down barriers — those are the women I admire most,” Governor Kathy Hochul said. “Edie would say, ‘I’m doing this for everybody, not just myself.’ Tough women are capable of doing anything.”
fIndeed. State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal noted that the big LGBTQ groups didn’t think the time was right for Windsor’s suit, which sought to get her legal marriage to Spyer in Canada recognized so that Windsor would not have to pay over $300,000 in taxes on her inheritance from Spyer. Lesbian attorney Roberta Kaplan — now famous for winning E. Jean Carroll’s suit against Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation — did take Windsor’s case and saw it through to the highest court in the land.
The Supreme Court victory forced the federal government to recognize all legal same-sex marriages.
“Today is about love,” Hochul said, “a love that started in Greenwich Village in 1963” when Edie and Thea first met.
Attorney General Letitia James called Windsor “a good friend and a mentor” and credited her with encouraging her to run for the office she now holds. James said she spent countless hours with Windsor, who gave her “strength.”
“She taught me to stand up and never bow down and to believe in your cause,” James said.
James called Windsor “a modern day Rosa Parks,” quoting Parks, who said, “When your mind is made up, that dissolves the fear.”
“There is nothing more powerful than a woman who has made up her mind,” James said.
Also lauding Windsor was former Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, who tried to introduce the first domestic partners bill in the City Council in the late 1980s, only to be told by Council leadership that they wouldn’t even print the bill because it was “unconstitutional.” (It eventually passed.) Maloney said that in 2017, Windsor said to her, “I’m dying” and she did indeed pass away that September at age 88.
“People are not invincible,” Maloney said, “but their legacies can be.”
Windsor would have been 94 on the day of this ceremony.
Much credit was given to Windsor’s surviving spouse, Judith Kasen-Windsor, who led the campaign for the street co-naming. Bottcher read a very long list of things that have been named for Windsor, from a block in Philadelphia to a scholarship fund for Lesbians Who Tech. (Windsor was an accomplished computer programmer professionally.)
Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright, also close to Windsor, said, “Edie and Thea took nothing for granted” and nor should we. Seawright urged us to get behind the state Equal Rights Amendment that would protect all without regard to sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression, and will be on the November 2024 ballot for ratification by voters.
Councilmember Christopher Marte, who represents Washington Square, successfully shepherded the Council bill to rename the corner.
“How do we make love have no boundaries?” he asked, saying this kind of recognition was one way.
And Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who co-chairs the LGBTQIA+ Caucus and chairs the Committee on Aging, paid special tribute to Windsor’s historic accomplishment in her later years. (She also noted that she got married and that she and her wife are expecting a baby — all made easier by Windsor’s victory.)
Perhaps all the more amazing was that this corner was named for this pioneering lesbian couple. Hoylman-Sigal noted that the building where they lived, on the Square at Two Fifth Avenue, was also the home of the late leading gay activist Larry Kramer, feminist icon and Congressmember Bella Abzug, and former Mayor Ed Koch.
This heartfelt ceremony took place against the backdrop of the all-out assault on LGBTQ rights from the Republican Party and other extremist groups nationwide — especially targeting transgender youth. Hochul talked about how LGBTQ people are having their rights “stripped away” in red states and urged us “not to forget about them on a day like today.”
She said to the haters, “Leave our kids alone! Get on with your own life!”
Also on hand were many of Edie and Thea’s comrades from Marriage Equality NY, the grassroots group that got behind her suit, including Cathy and Sheila Marino-Thomas, Michael Sabatino and Robert Voorheis, and Brendan Fay, whose group — the Civil Marriage Trail Project — arranged to transport Edie and Thea to Canada in 2007 for their wedding when New York was not yet performing same-sex marriages but did recognize legal ones from elsewhere.
The ceremony took place at the Washington Square Arch where two statues of the man referred to as “the father of his country” loom. Now at least two of our movements founding mothers are getting some of the recognition they so richly deserve.
