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Women

WATCH: Edie Windsor on Coming Out, Her Love Story, and How Times Have Changed

Edie Windsor, the 83-year-old lesbian widow whose case before the Supreme Court just struck down a key section of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and cleared the way for legally married same-sex couples to access a litany of federal benefits, filmed a rare video interview for lesbian cruise line Olivia Travel to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary.

Sunnivie Brydum

<p>Sunnivie is an award-winning journalist and the managing editor at <em>The Advocate</em>. A proud spouse and puppy-parent, Sunnivie strives to queer up the world of reporting while covering the politics of equality daily.</p>

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Sunnivie Brydum

sunnivie

July 10 2013 5:13 PM EST

November 08 2024 6:37 AM EST

Edie Windsor, the 83-year-old lesbian widow whose case before the Supreme Court just struck down a key section of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and cleared the way for legally married same-sex couples to access a litany of federal benefits, filmed a rare video interview for lesbian cruise line Olivia Travel to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary.

In the video, Windsor talks about how old she was when she first realized she was gay, how she managed to come out, what her love for Thea Spyer, her spouse of four decades, looked like, and how the LGBT community achieved some of the landmark victories we've seen recently.

"Once we, the whole community," began to come out and be visible, it started to move much more rapidly," Windsor says of the recent advances in LGBT equality. "When people discovered that their children, or their cousins, or their brother, or you know, their husband, were gay. So I think the way that it accelerated in the last five years has been glorious."

Of course, a significant cause behind that acceleration was Windsor's case before the Supreme Court, which last month struck down a key section DOMA, and ordered the government to repay more than $360,000 it required Windsor to pay when Spyer died, since DOMA prohibited the federal government from recognizing any same-sex marriages.