NEW YORK – Former technology manager at IBM, and marriage equality champion Edie Windsor will be honored with The Trevor Project’s Icon Award at the 2017 TrevorLIVE New York fundraising gala June 19. The Trevor Project is the nation’s only nonprofit crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization focused on ending suicide among LGBTQ+ youth.
“Edie has proven herself to be a true pioneer in the fight for LGBTQ rights for decades,” said The Trevor Project’s Interim Executive Director Steve Mendelsohn. “She has fought relentlessly for marriage equality, and remains a trailblazer and inspiration to the LGBTQ community across the world. We’re honored and delighted to present The Trevor Project’s Icon Award to Ms. Windsor for exemplifying leadership with strength, poise, courage and fearlessness.”
The award will be officially bestowed upon Windsor during the organization’s annual New York signature fundraiser, TrevorLIVE, held at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square.
“Being honored by The Trevor Project is a very big deal for me,” said Windsor. “I’m thrilled and humbled to be recognized by an organization that does so much for our LGBTQ young people. The fact that The Trevor Project continues year after year to be there 24/7 helping prevent suicide and averting crisis gives us all a future we can believe in.”
The event will also feature performances by Shoshana Bean, Dana Goldberg, Jeremy Jordan, and a special extended performance by Grammy Award-winning rock band, Imagine Dragons. The event will feature a first-peek performance from the upcoming musical, Trevor. It was previously announced that lead singer of Imagine Dragons, Dan Reynolds, will be honored with the Trevor Project Hero Award, one of the nonprofit’s top accolades. More attendees to be announced soon.
Edie Windsor’s scope of work has touched many causes and foundations, including East End Gay Organizations, the LGBT Community Center, and Team New York at the Gay Games in NYC in 1994. She was also one of the first Marriage Ambassadors for the Empire State Pride Agenda. The Edie Windsor Fund for Old Lesbians, which provides meaningful grants to projects by and for lesbian older adults, was gifted to Windsor on her 70th birthday and is maintained and administered by Open Meadows Foundation.
The case of United States v Windsor is arguably the most influential legal precedent in the struggle for LGBT marriage equality. In its landmark 2013 ruling in Windsor, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which by its terms had excluded gay couples from all the benefits and protections of marriage under federal law. At the heart of Windsor is the principle that gay people have dignity, and that the Constitution mandates that this dignity be respected equally under the law. Since Windsor, more than forty federal district court opinions and four circuit courts have held that the U.S. Constitution requires that gay people be allowed to marry.
TrevorLIVE presenting sponsors are Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Deloitte, and Goldman Sachs.
Fans and advocates will be able to experience the TrevorLIVE red carpet arrivals and show via Facebook livestream on the Trevor Project’s Facebook page. For more information on TrevorLIVE New York, please visit: http://ny.trevorlive.org/.
