Jim Obergefell was lead plaintiff in “Obergefell v. Hodges,” the 2015 case in which the Supreme Court held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

I’ll never forget the day I met Edie Windsor. I was at an event in the ACLU offices in New York. We were introduced in the middle of a crowded room, and it was as if everyone else — everything else, really — ceased to exist. I suddenly found myself in the orbit of this mesmerizing woman. We chatted about our experiences in the landmark legal cases that ultimately led to marriage equality in the United States. But we talked more about Thea and John, our late spouses.

We both began to cry, and I remember being struck by how present Edie was, how she made me feel as if I were the only other person in that room. In the two years after we met, however, I saw again and again that this was just Edie’s way. Whether you were an old friend with many shared memories or a stranger, Edie made you feel known.

Hero. Our society has become very free in its use of that word, but if anyone fully deserved the label, it was Edie, who died Tuesday in Manhattan at 88. Her successful career in the male-dominated world of technology and her efforts to inspire and support women in that industry are reasons enough to admire her. But that isn’t why so many of us consider Edie our hero. Read more via Washington Post