Edie Windsor's (z"l) Legacy Lives On

Reprinted from the internal Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT+) IBMers & Friends community

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

At about 57 minutes in, during the inaugural 60 Minutes to Bolder Leadership Panel on Monday, IBMer Ella Slade asked the Out-Role-Model panelists who their role models were. I was the moderator, so I didn't answer, but if I had answered, I'd have answered Edie Windsor (z"l).

We first met in 2002, when IBM alumnus Joseph Bertolotti and I organized a panel on the state of same-sex marriage around the world. IBM co-sponsored it at the LGBT Center in New York City with the United Nations' Susan Allee, an attorney who was also the head of the Middle East Peacekeeping Desk and a member of GLOBE, the LGBT employee group of the UN. Edie and her then long-time partner Thea Spyer (z"l) attended and spoke with me afterward. 

They were there because they were planning to marry and wanted to know the very latest of trends and timing on where it was being made legal. Edie also was happy that IBM had co-sponsored it because she said she had been an IBMer. Edie and her wife were so glamorous. And so down to earth. All at once. I loved meeting a lesbian IBMer who had worked at IBM in New York City, like me, only a generation prior. And we exchanged email addresses and stayed in touch a bit. Sometime later, reading an article, I think, I learned that she and her wife were Jewish, like mine and me! A bonus. I wanted to be like Edie Windsor, even a little bit. 

And then with the help of a phenomenal lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Edie Windsor made it possible for my wife and me to marry legally, which we did, and at the newspaper's suggestion, we even made a 3-minute video about how we got together. Edie Windsor became an icon and I was moved to post a "Where were you ...?" forum entry in our internal LGBT+ IBMers & Friends community the day of the decision. That Yom Kippur, my mom (z"l) opted to join us for services at our synagogue and we were blessed to be sitting right near Edie Windsor, who had recently become a congregant.

My mom's (z"l) name also was Edie, and she was just four years older than Edie Windsor. When I introduced them, my mother started crying and effusively thanked Edie for her leadership. They hugged. My mom said she had a gift for Edie and we shipped Edie a mezuzah, though she was a less observant Jew than we were. That was my mom's final Yom Kippur. She died peacefully in her sleep the following early-June. I still had one more Edie, at least, but it was complicated because Edie had first seemed glamorous to me, and both Pat & I formed a bit of a crush on her. And then she became the Edie who was my gone mother's contemporary plus the incidental mentor and icon on whom I had a crush, and I was happy to live with the complexity.

This past June, I was privileged to speak with Judith Kasen Windsor, Edie's new wife, by phone, to arrange for a rendezvous with Edie and Judith and the IBM delegation of the LGBT Pride March in New York City, so that she could march with us for a bit. During that conversation, Judith told me that Edie displayed the mezuzah atop her piano, which held all of the awards she had received, and Judith kindly sent me a photo.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. In 2015 and 2016, we were privileged to go to Edie's house for a summer-time party; she had the best music and liked to dance, and then Roberta Kaplan's book came out and we brought it with us for Edie to sign:

   

 
In 2016, Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Fred Balboni, Claudia Woody, Beth Feeney, Mary Garrity and Bruno Di Leo invited Edie to have lunch at IBM at 590 Madison Avenue in New York City and I was kindly invited to join along with Kim Messer of the LGBT business development team that I had helped start up in 2001 -- and which was how the event at the LGBT Center in 2002 came to be co-sponsored by IBM -- and also Leanne Pittsford, the CEO of Lesbians Who Tech. At that lunch, I was reminded of why I admired Edie so much: She was a charming, staunch activist. My favorite photo that I got to take that day was of Edie striding down the hall at 590 (and Fred's husband Geoff Collins is accompanying her, carrying her flowers). And Judith did make it possible for Edie to stride with us at the LGBT Pride March this summer:

Edie, thanks for your dedication to innovation that matters, for our company and the world, and for being someone magnificent for me to look up to. And please know that the 60-Minutes-to-Bolder-Leadership panelists in the series, and other LGBT+ IBMers and allies will keep working hard to make our clients and IBM successful while being corporate activists in parallel to honor your legacy. 

Davke on Yom Kippur

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Are You Leaving So Soon? Because We Want To

We are motherless, and fatherless, children -- both of us -- now, as of March, 2015. From Kol Nidre last night through Yizkor today, I've been moved, and now, am moved to write about what moved me, rather than remaining in synagogue, where I'd be feeling perhaps further moved, but also antsy.

Last year, we left right after Yizkor and I thought it was because it was my first one without my mom (z"l) and this year, we did the same; it's Pat's first without her mom (z"l) ... or is it a trend? Pat says she can't stand for such long stretches anymore. How will I feel when I'm 65, like she is now? Please God, let me live long enough to find out. Meanwhile, I had enough poignant experiences to last me through this High Holiday even though we left by noon on Yom Kippur.

Here's what moved me:

Pat and I ushered. We were among the very first people anyone saw as he or she entered the building. Probably a dozen people walked in alone saying that they didn't have a ticket. And many others walked in alone who did have tickets. A number of them walked in apparently riveted by their phone-screen, making no eye-contact even after we greeted them. What was each one's story? Why were they alone on Yom Kippur?

And then a pretty, ginger-haired woman hobbled in with a cane and was looking everywhere but at other people when I said, "Shanah tovah. Welcome. Would you like to use the elevator?"

Her eyes zoomed in on me and she nodded. As we walked together, she said she was meeting her two sons here and that they had been coming to our synagogue for years, though this was her first visit.

"Oh, you'll like it, I think. My mom [z"l] used to say that she thought our services, at any time of the year, were the nicest she'd ever been to."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She loved them."

"That's nice."

As we got to the sanctuary, I pointed to a box of kippot and tallitot and asked, "Would you like a kippah and a tallit?"

"Oh, no, I'm Orthodox and I'm very nervous."

"Don't be nervous ... I didn't mean to say that. Be nervous if you need to be, but you don't have to be."

"That's a big Machzor," she said.

"I think you'll recognize at least half of the tunes and you'll enjoy the service. I wish I could find you afterwards to see what you thought."

She thanked me for carrying her Machzor and showing her to her seat and we parted. At the end of services, she was gone by the time I reached where she had been sitting. As I passed her empty seat, I hoped she had stayed and hadn't left early due to there being, for example, musical instruments; Orthodox Judaism forbids making music with anything but our voices during Shabbat and holidays, as it's considered labor, and we're not supposed to work at those times.

Trying, unsuccessfully, to distract myself from missing my mom (z"l)

My mom (z"l) got too old to sit or stand for so long and stopped coming to our services several years ago, but on the Yom Kippur prior to her death, she decided she wanted to come for Yizkor, so we made it happen. I blogged about it here, how she met Edie Windsor and thanked her for her leadership and what a great experience it was.

Pat and I saw Edie today and Pat said later, "We won't have Edie around forever."

My mom's (z"l) name also was Edie. And that's for sure.

Including Edie Windsor, I was moved by a number of other gorgeous women. There's a young woman in the choir with eyes that make me miss my cats and long, black, wavy hair, and I am always interested in the stories of women who can pass as heterosexual and how they end up being true to themselves. Whenever I see someone in her 20s at our shul, I time-travel back to that age and how I was finding my way back to Judaism then, and living in Chicago, and so was going to the Chicago LGBT congregation, Or Chadash. It's where I met Pat.

Something else that moved me: Dr. Nathan Goldstein, our president, mentioned that this year, the shul was celebrating four b'nai mitzvah and that all of the parents of the b'nai mitzvah had met at our synagogue.

Rabbi Kleinbaum's and a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern's drashot (sermons) touched me, too because Rabbi Kleinbaum read the whole Emma Goldman poem from the Statue of Liberty in the context of the refugee crisis -- Pat had posted the poem on her Facebook wall days ago, asking whether we can be, once again, a country that stands behind that poem. And I was moved by the intern's drash because she asked, Do we avoid coming to shul because we feel we cannot be authentically whoever we are, however we feel?

She spoke of her sister's mental illness episode in 2007 and how we don't typically speak of such things because we cannot dare to be vulnerable. It made me want to come to shul more often, even when I'm not in a great mood. And it made me feel some relief, hearing a future rabbi speak of the need to talk about things we don't typically talk about, to remove the stigma and historical shame of them. I have relatives with mental health problems and I practically never talk about that.

There are a few more things that have moved me during this Yom Kippur so far:

During Yizkor, too, the Executive Director of Jerusalem Open House Sarah Kala made remarks in Hebrew about Shira Banki, the 15 year-old Jerusalem LGBT Pride Parade marcher who was stabbed by an Ultra-Orthodox Israeli and who died of her wounds. One of our Israeli congregants simultaneously translated into English and then our cantorial intern Steve Zeidenberg and the chorus sang "Shir L'Shira", a pop song that was re-dedicated to this particular Shira after her death, and which has been sung at demonstrations around Israel ever since.

Last year, when Broadway singer Sally Wilfert sang Broadway composer and congregant William Finn's "Anytime", I wept. This year, I couldn't let go, or maybe the wound is less fresh, but still, I became choked up because the words and her voice do remind me of my mom (z"l), especially when she sings that anytime I wash my hands, she'll be there. Until she died, my mom (z"l) never failed to ask me when I returned from the bathroom, "Did you wash your hands?"

Now that I'm back home and our kitties are slumbering near me as I blog, I'm moved by the little one, Toonces', capacity for snoring. She's so little, but so audible when she sleeps. And it's cute, and I'm hopeful about caring for such beautiful feline daughters.  

Yom Kippur is all about repenting and praying to be sealed into the Book of Life for the coming year. Please, God, if it be Your will, let Pat & Phoebe, the cat, and Toonces, the cat, and my sisters and their families and all of my relatives and friends and me stay alive and healthy for another year. Amen.

Differences and Similarities Among Generations

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Fashions, Including the Twist, and Seeking Love Eternally

Lately, I've been reminded of generational differences and similarities by my own experience, media -- social and otherwise -- and literature. This post reflects what turns out to be mostly a stream of consciousness around the reminders:

In every other dimension of diversity, I'm so comfortable with giving credit for our differences, like around gender, gender identity and expression, people with disabilities, race and color and sexual orientation, but I find myself wanting to erase differences when it comes to generations. I tell myself and sometimes others that I think it is divisive to point out the differences among generations too much, and besides, there are some misconceptions on differences in any case, for example, there are plenty of people beyond age 35 who love social media and plenty of younger people who are not as enamored of it, but am I also simply being vain and not wanting to feel different (older) than younger generations?

While struggling next to a younger and abler person on the elliptical machine at L.A. Fitness this morning, I was listening to some generic pop music being piped in over the gym's PA while watching the silent, captioned version of "CBS Sunday Morning". I saw a clip on the anniversary of "The Twist," reaching #1 for the second time. The segment quoted President Eisenhower who questioned, What has happened to our standards of beauty and morality and decency?" in relation to the then popular dance.

Listening to an older relative the other day, talking about a man she met at the Jewish Community Center's Senior Lunches, I'm filled with sympathy, though thank God not yet empathy, when she says how she wishes he would invite her to go to Florida with him...and then wonders aloud if his kids always fly with him because he might forget where he is while in the airport, since he's 90 and dealing with some dementia at this point, and how she would want to stay in separate rooms, so that she wouldn't wake him repeatedly at night with her many, necessary bathroom trips.

Factoring Some Fashion-oriented Rebellion into Sexual Orientation Among Generations

A couple of nights ago, I read page 3 of a book of short stories that won the 2011 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, where an 88-year-old lesbian protagonist reflects silently:

We sit on a bench downtown and watch the children (really, college students) stroll by. I am amazed. Women who live with other women now do their very best to look like men. Some of them are cute in a rumpled way, with their Buddy Holly eyeglasses and porkpie hats, but for the most part they are terribly unappealing. Of course, they don't care what my ogling eyes tell them. Or notice that I am ogling at all. I am only a figure in a maroon windbreaker, sitting folded up on a park bench, dissolving into the daylight....

Still, I imagine that beneath the flannel and military trousers of these young ladies there might be something pleasing, and that imagining occupies me.

God willing, sort of, that will be me someday. Meanwhile, reading "The Wall Street Journal" weekend edition, twice I saw references to "mutton" vs. "lamb" in fashion articles. Believe it or not, I had never before heard the expression and now, it's haunting me a bit. For example, in this article on long-lasting lipstick, I became anxious reading, "...gloss is sticky and impractical, with a kind of mutton/lamb stigma for anyone over, say, 32." Did I become a mutton 15 years ago?

As a lamb in the late-'80s to early-'90s -- and as a sporty lesbian -- like many of my peers, I would wear baseball caps when not at work, and then for more formal occasions, like dances, a nice tie (and no baseball cap).

Today, I am disoriented by the tattoos and various piercings that seem more and more common on people of all sexual orientations, but I worry about sounding like President Eisenhower on The Twist. Really, weren't my baseball cap and ties off-putting to some from other generations? And even to a number from my own generation? Most fashions are not universal, and nearly none is timeless.

It is not only younger people who are getting piercings and tattoos, just like it's not only younger people who are dissatisfied with a binary concept of gender. Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, is in her sixties. Yet, the uninitiated who read "Generation LGBTQIA" in the Thursday edition of "The New York Times" might think that today's university students who self-identify beyond Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual are a new phenomenon. And perhaps that primarily university students are thinking this way.

On January 11, 2013, 4:09 pm, "AC" from "MA" posted a terrific comment, under the online version of the article:

...this article suggests that "LGBTQIA" people primarily exist in rich, privileged liberal arts colleges. In reality, many of them live on the streets. A huge percentage of trans and gender nonconforming kids get kicked out or disowned, they get more negative treatment in foster care, in juvenile systems, and they have a harder time finding employment. This is why a lot of trans women, for instance, end up in prostitution. These kids are very lucky to have this space while in college to find an accepting community, but they, too, will have to face discrimination upon graduation.

A number of older people are more settled than a number of younger people and so it might be assumed that older people focus more so on "#1stworldproblem"s, like same-sex marriage, rather than homelessness of LGBTQIA people. Just like Kate Bornstein -- who will be 65 on March 15th -- is at the forefront of the gender frontier, why can't younger and older people alike be invested in same-sex marriage in parallel with human rights for LGBTQIA people of all ages and classes? Why must it be binary -- one or the other?

Older and Younger People Alike, Wanting Love or Equality, or Both

Edie Windsor, dubbed "The Hero of the Marriage Equality Movement", is in her eighties and if everything had been different, her late-in-life-legal spouse and she could have met even earlier than 1963 and might have been at the same parties as my parents, who lived in Greenwich Village at the start of their marriage, and who were Edie & her wife Thea's contemporaries, as well as a similarly smart, good-looking Jewish couple.

Yesterday, a younger friend of ours from our synagogue who's a Transwoman posted her disappointment on Facebook at being too old to take advantage of programs in Israel for teens. Wanting to be useful in response, I shared a link with her on the LGBTQ version of Birthright Israel. She responded that at 29, she was too old, since the cutoff was age 26.

Like my Trans friend, I read the article about LGBTQ Birthright trips bemoaning how such trips did not exist when I was 20. And then I thought about it further: We still found one another back then, we who were looking. We met via Junior years abroad, in dorms and classes and we met new immigrants and Israelis and managed. I'm reminded of part of Edie Windsor's story from the link I referred to above:

Windsor left for New York City. After getting a master’s degree in mathematics from New York University in 1957, Windsor joined IBM and slowly began finding her way as a lesbian in the city.

"It was before Stonewall," she recalls. "It wasn't as unknown as everyone would have you believe, so Stonewall wasn’t really the beginning, but it was a wonderful rebellion. Until then, people who wanted to march and protest did it very carefully in proper suits and ties and the women dressed in dresses. You were asked to leave if you hadn’t come dressed properly. But, they existed. And they cared."

Maybe the differences and similarities among generations come down to some differences in fashion and rebellion-styles, but then they can find common ground because the fashions and rebellions can be in service to a common goal: finding love or equality, or both.

History!

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

We're on the Way to Being Acknowledged as Human!

What will I be in the position to do when I'm in my mid-80s? By that time, in 40 years, I hope people will be talking about the inability for two people of the same gender to marry the way we talk about interracial marriage today. Same-sex couples will still be a bit exotic, but no one will question that they can marry. I interpret marriage as a basic human right and to have a number of people still suggesting that marriage is not my entitlement says to me that they do not see me as human.

Today, with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to consider the case of Edie Windsor, who spent more than a decade at IBM, and who's Jewish and lesbian and around my mom's age -- and for all of those reasons, I relate to her especially -- makes Edie at the vanguard of the human rights movement. And I'm sure that instead of being in that role, she'd rather simply have her wife still with her, and to be going about their lives, but in the absence of that possibility, she has channeled heart-break and loss into heroism. God bless Edie Windsor.

IBM Alumna Edie Windsor's Remarks Upon Winning NOW NYC's Susan B. Anthony Award & Some Bonus, Personal Reflections

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Re-posted from the LGBT IBMers and Friends Community behind IBM's firewall:

Last week, NOW NYC honored Edie Windsor, an IBM alumna and co-star of the poignant documentary, "Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement." Pat & I first met Edie and Thea 10 years ago at the LGBT Center in New York City, at an event co-sponsored by IBM and the United Nations' GLOBE (LGBT employee group). The topic was same-sex marriage laws around the world. Edie and Thea attended, as they wanted to know the latest trends; they were preparing to marry one way or another. They did wed, in Toronto, but sadly, Thea passed away prior to New York legalizing same-sex marriage. And because same-sex marriage is not yet recognized federally, Edie is required to pay a tax on her wife's estate, which would not be required if their marriage were recognized.

Learn more from Edie's remarks, which Edie gave me permission to post:

Thank you so much, NOW NY City, for honoring me with this award. It has particular meaning because of our somewhat parallel histories:

I began dating Thea in 1965, and NOW was founded in 1966. NOW, at that time argued fiercely for the legal equality of women but not for Lesbian women. As late as 2000, Betty Friedan who had founded NOW was finally acknowledging Lesbian sex “Enjoy” but did not want “them” politicized. And at that time Thea and I lived much of our working lives in the closet.

Retired from IBM in 1975 and active in the Personal Computer user groups, I found a new career as a grass-roots gay activist, engaged with almost every gay organization that existed already or as they were being born, meeting new friends of every age and ilk and making them part of my life with Thea. Developing an ever-increasing and life-changing love of the gay community, I came out as a Lesbian in all areas of my life. And received a Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGE in October 2010, one month before I filed my law suit.

I want to tell you why I am suing the United States of America, but first some necessary background.

My late spouse, Thea Spyer, and I lived together and loved each other for more than four decades – in sickness and in health – truly in love until death did us part.

We began dating in 1965, became engaged with a circular diamond broach in 1967, and stayed engaged for 40 years.

We lived through good times – each with jobs that we loved, great friends and dancing – oh we danced.

And we lived through the vicissitudes of aging and illness.

In 1977 Thea was diagnosed with Progress Multiple Sclerosis, in 1996 I had emergency Coronary Bypass surgery. Then in 2002, Thea’s aortic stenosis. And we still lived and enjoyed our life together – and still we danced.

We became Domestic Partners the first day it was offered in New York and we waited to be legally married in New York. But Thea had a lousy prognosis – max one year to live – so we decided to get married immediately – and we did in Toronto in May, 2007. Our wedding announcement in the New York Times completed this couple’s coming OUT.

(The history of Thea’s and my over 4-decades love affair and the LGBT times in which we lived are meticulously and lovingly documented in the film, “Edie and Thea – A Very Long Engagement,” produced and directed by Greta Olafsdottir and Susan Muska.)

When my beautiful, sparkling, brilliant Thea died in February 2009, I was overcome with grief. Within a month I was hospitalized with a heart attack, characterized as “broken heart syndrome”. Grieving and ill, I had to content with the immediate effects of the cruelly misnamed Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA.

Although New York State recognized our marriage, the federal government did not. So the government taxed what I inherited from Thea as though we were strangers rather than spouses. I paid over #350,000 in Federal Estate Tax. I’m 82 years old and live on a fixed income. Paying that tax was not easy.

Overwhelmed by my sense of injustice and unfairness, I decided to enter a lawsuit against the government to challenge that unjust law, DOMA, as unconstitutional and to get the federal government to treat married same-sex couples the same way that it treats all other married couples.

I lucked out when I found Roberta Kaplan, a Litigation Partner of Paul Weiss et al who stepped up to support my case. She then introduced me to James Essecks of ACLU who joined us. These two, Robbie and James, lead a legal dream team.

As many of you may know, President Obama and the Justice Department agreed with me that DOMA is unconstitutional and informed the court that they would no longer defend DOMA. But that privilege devolved on the House of Representatives which is defending DOMA.

Our status is that we are “fully briefed” and are awaiting the judge’s decision.

Along with society, NOW and I have come a long way.

I feel so proud and grateful that NOW gives the Susan B. Anthony Award to this out Lesbian for her fight for equality for all of us.

I try imagining Edie, who is to this day a magnetically-appealing woman, at work at IBM among mostly guys in slightly post-"Mad Men" and pre-early-Disco era. When we met in 2002, she said that she was out selectively at IBM, even back then. Wow. No wonder she spent the rest of her life as an activist. She was braver than most, to be out to any degree in any corporate environment back then.

Everyone needs role models and that night in 2002, whether or not they -- or we -- knew it, Edie & Thea became role models for Pat & me. While I had always been out at IBM, having joined 12 years after sexual orientation was included in the non-discrimination policy, Pat & I had not yet had any sort of marriage ceremony, though by 2002, we had already been together for a decade. Edie & Thea's desire to marry, along with the example of our friends David Chase & Gerard Cortinez in 2003, and our friends Stacy Brodsky & Felice Londa in 2011, we saw that it could -- and should -- be done. Finally, this past summer, after nearly two decades together, Pat & I tied the knot legally in my hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, and like Edie & Thea, our wedding announcement was also in "The New York Times,' and at the newspaper's suggestion, we even made a little video about how we got together.

We continue to need heroes in our community. And it's always nice when IBM is their current employer or part of their history.

Handsful of Heroes

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Daloz Says That a Mentor Is Someone Who Has Been There Before You

Mentors for me, whether or not they know they are, include:

• My sisters, Deborah and Kayla, both older than I -- girls can do anything
  
• My mother -- Jews can do anything
  
• My father of blessed memory -- Creative souls can do anything
  
• Aunt Tovah of blessed memory -- women can do anything
  
• Dr. Barbara Sang -- lesbian women can do anything
  
• Jane Harper -- people can do anything
  
• Rob Shook -- I can do anything
  
• Carol Vericker -- I can be a leader
  
• Mike Fuller -- I can help IBM do anything in behalf of gay, lesbian, bi and trans clients and colleagues
  
• Edie Windsor -- Lesbians at IBM in the '60s can do anything
  
• Lynn Conway -- MTF women can do anything
  
• Kate Bornstein -- MTF people can love anyone and then also can raise my consciousness about the not necessarily binary quality of gender.
  

I'm grateful to all of my mentors, all of whom are heroes to me.