American activist Edith Windsor was BOTD in 1929. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Russian Jewish immigrant family, she grew up in poverty during the Great Depression. She won a scholarship to Temple University, marrying a family friend in 1951 in an attempt to avoid her lesbian identity. She left her husband a year later and moved to New York City. earning a master’s degree in mathematics from New York University. After graduating, she joined IBM in 1957, working for the company for 16 years, while undertaking post-graduate study at Harvard College. After a brief marriage, she came out as a lesbian in 1952 and moved to New York City. In 1975, she left IBM to establish her own consultancy firm specialising in software development projects. Windsor met her partner Thea Spyer in 1963, remaining together for 44 years until Spyer’s death in 2009. In 2013, she sued the US government after being prevented from claiming a tax exemption for surviving spouses in respect of Sayer’s estate. The US Supreme Court ruled in her favour, holding that legislation defining marriage as between a man and a woman was unconstitutional. The case paved the way for legal recognition of same-sex relationships, making Windsor a national spokesperson for LGBTG rights. In 2016, she and her partner Judith Karen became one of the first gay couples to get married, following federal law change to allow same-sex marriage. She died in 2017, aged 88. Amid many posthumous tributes, she was inducted into the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument in New York, in recognition of her activism.