How Edith Windsor Became a ‘Matriarch of the Gay-Rights Movement’

For most of her life, Edith Windsor was a private citizen who, like most Americans, had a name that — while meaningful to those in her circle of friends and family — was largely unknown to the wider world. But a late-in-life decision ensured that the LGBTQ activist, who died on Tuesday at 88, as her wife Judith Kasen-Windsor confirmed, would find her name a solid part of American history.

After all, it's her name in the 2013 Supreme Court case United States v.