--- title: Edie Windsor Reflects on the AIDS Crisis in Posthumous Book description: Read an excerpt from the gay rights activist's new memoir, completed after her death. "My new awareness of all the battles that needed to be fought always managed to snap me out of my sadness," she wrote. canonical: https://time.com/5695377/edie-windsor-memoir/ author: Edie Windsor article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-08T21:40:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T07:31:00.374Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How the AIDS Crisis Changed the Dynamic Between Gay Men and Women og:description: Edie Windsor reflects on the era in her posthumous memoir og:url: https://time.com/5695377/edie-windsor-memoir/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28e3d67ddd302efb/698a03fa16d8849083c37160/edie-windsor-memoir.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5000 og:image:height: 2813 og:image:alt: Marriage equality pioneer Edie Windsor. Mayor Bill de Blasio og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How the AIDS Crisis Changed the Dynamic Between Gay Men and Women twitter:description: Edie Windsor reflects on the era in her posthumous memoir twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt28e3d67ddd302efb/698a03fa16d8849083c37160/edie-windsor-memoir.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How the AIDS Crisis Changed the Dynamic Between Gay Men and Women, as Told in Edie Windsor's Memoir > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Edie Windsor](https://time.com/author/edith-windsor/) ## Edie Windsor Oct 8, 2019 9:40 PM UTC  Marriage equality pioneer Edie Windsor in New York City on June 27, 2016. Marriage equality pioneer Edie Windsor in New York City on June 27, 2016. Pacific Press—LightRocket via Getty Images by [Edie Windsor](https://time.com/author/edith-windsor/) ## Edie Windsor Oct 8, 2019 9:40 PM UTC One Friday evening in the early summer of 1981, [Thea and I](https://time.com/3805642/inside-the-photo-albums-of-edith-windsor-and-thea-spyer/) were in Southampton preparing dinner when something on the news caught our attention: “The CDC reports that between October 1980 and May of 1981, five young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for pneumonia at three different hospitals in Los Angeles. Two have died.” A month later, the New York _Times_ published its now-infamous article with the headline “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” and alarms began to go off everywhere in our community. We spent the next day taking turns on the phone, calling around to friends in the medical field. Thea confessed that one of her patients, a gay male, had been sick and canceled his last several appointments, but she clammed up after that, not wanting to break confidentiality. I learned that one of my male friends from the 1950s whom I’d mostly lost track of was also sick. Within the next two years, he and one of the other men in that group would be dead. The speed with which AIDS took hold is terrifying to recall, and the memories of that period are horrid. By the end of 1981, officials estimated hundreds had died in the U.S., and soon, our downstairs neighbor Larry Kramer held the very first meeting of what would become the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Funeral invitations began to pour in, and by the mid-’80s, many of the gay men we knew were dead. Until that point, [gay men and women](https://time.com/5677327/new-york-city-gay-conversion-therapy-ban/) still rarely mixed. Once gay men started becoming sick, though, the wall between us collapsed. Lesbians stepped up to become caretakers when entire families turned against their sick male family members. Thea and I both knew that wallowing in feelings of helplessness wasn’t going to get us anywhere, so we began to attend demonstrations and small fundraisers, donating money to different advocacy groups. Since we moved in fairly affluent circles, we had friends who knew to hit us up for money, and we gave. It was the least we could do. We’d always missed the Pride March in June because it happened on the weekend, and we spent those in Southampton. One Sunday night, at some point in the early ’80s, I suggested we take a quick drive around the Village before getting to the apartment to see what was left of the parade. Christopher Street was empty, but debris from the marchers and parties were scattered everywhere. I felt hollow and said, “Honey, let’s not miss it anymore.” From then on, we didn’t. I wasn’t quite ready to join the march myself, but we’d watch from the sideline and cheer everyone on. An organization we supported that had risen out of the [Stonewall riots](https://time.com/5617238/lgbtq-community-after-stonewall/), called the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, was growing fast as need for their help increased, and we were friendly with the group’s vice president, David Rothenberg. In 1983, a former school on West 13th Street was put up for sale by the city, and after some initial resistance, Mayor Ed Koch agreed to sell it to the Center for $1.5 million, with a down payment of $150,000 due by the end of the year. We donated money, along with almost 200 others, and the Center met its goal. When they tried to pay me back, I tore up the check. I wish I could say my reason was purely altruistic, but the check they wrote had the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center right there in big words on it. I was fine being out in the community, but I wasn’t about to let my bank know that I was gay. Homosexuals in New York City had no legal rights in terms of being [discriminated against in housing, employment and public accommodations](https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/21/nyregion/homosexual-rights-bill-is-passed-by-city-council-in-21-to-14-vote.html), and still wouldn’t until 1986. I did have something else to offer gay rights organizations besides money, though — my tech expertise. Early AIDS and gay rights organizations were very bare-bones, made up largely of volunteers who used whatever kinds of office materials they could get their hands on, and I began to help both the Center and the East End Gay Organization set up their early computer systems. For EEGO, I debugged their address databases for fund-raising mailers and newsletters, and at the Center, I wrote a program revision to their central database that allowed it to create gender designations so that mailings about events and services geared specifically toward women could be easily sorted. I also became involved with the Center’s social calendar, volunteering to help with dances and events. Due to her MS, Thea wasn’t able to join me for the setups, which involved a lot of physical activity like climbing ladders to tape paper flowers to the walls for decorations, but she came to each event with me. The freedom of the ’70s felt like ages ago. Now there was always another struggle, be it political, with our government refusing to do anything about AIDS, or bureaucratic, with arguments within the [gay organizations](https://time.com/5613276/glaad-acceptance-index-lgbtq-survey/) that, at the end of the day, were all trying to do the same thing: create change and acceptance of us. My new awareness of all the battles that needed to be fought always managed to snap me out of my sadness. I’d return to the apartment, energized and ready once more to mobilize and fight for our rights or make love with my beautiful Thea. More often than not, both would happen in the same afternoon. _Adapted from_ [A Wild and Precious Life](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250195136/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1250195136&linkId=f14f722b3ccfab18a3e62366da8639b1) _by Edie Windsor with Joshua Lyon. 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