Amy Schneider: 5 Things About Trans ‘Jeopardy!’ Icon Poised To Win ‘Tournament Of Champions’

• Amy Schneider won 40 games and astir $1.4 cardinal on Jeopardy!
• She’s competing in Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions and has reached the finals.
• Amy is transgender.
• She got joined successful May 2022.

Amy Schneider kicked butt connected Jeopardy!, and present she’s dominating connected the Tournament of Champions. The 43-year-old was automatically seeded into the semi-finals due to the fact that of her unthinkable show on Jeopardy!. Amy defeated Tyler Rhode and Maureen O’Neil in the Tournament of Champions semi-finals connected Nov. 9, finishing the lucifer with $19,664. Amy officially secured her spot successful the finals that statesman Nov. 14, wherever the archetypal contestant to triumph 3 games earns the $250,000 expansive prize. Before the semi-finals match, Amy played successful a no-stakes accumulation crippled against Matt Amodio and Mattea Roach. Amy came successful 3rd spot down Mattea, the runner-up, and Matt, the winner.

Amy told USA Today how she prepared for Tournament of Champions. “Mostly, it was the aforesaid worldly that I’ve been doing anterior to my archetypal run, conscionable going done aged games and looking for things I didn’t know,” she said. “I did signifier penning down Final Jeopardy! answers, because the enactment of penning it down had thrown maine off. I was conscionable visualizing each of the scenarios that mightiness happen.”

Amy Schneider connected ‘Jeopardy!’ (Photo: Jeopardy Productions, Inc.)

Amy made past connected Jeopardy! with a 40-game winning streak that earned her astir $1.4 million. She became the 4th contestant ever to walk the $1 cardinal people connected the quiz show. Amy won her archetypal crippled connected November 17, 2021, and dominated close done to January 26, 2022 erstwhile she mislaid to Chicago librarian Rhone Talsmam. Keep readying to find out everything you request to cognize astir Amy Schneider.

1. Amy is from Ohio.

Amy is primitively from Ohio, though she present resides successful Oakland, California, according to her Jeopardy! profile. She lives successful Oakland with her girlfriend, Genevieve, and their cat, Meep.

Amy and Genevieve got joined connected May 9, 2022, but Amy waited until September to denote the large news. She shared Instagram photos of the mates connected their peculiar day, writing, “Genevieve and I are delighted to denote that connected Monday, May 9, we were joined successful a tiny backstage ceremonial astatine the Alameda County Recorder. We volition inactive beryllium having a accepted wedding & reception adjacent summer, but our lives person been overmuch excessively engaged this twelvemonth to get precise acold successful readying it, and we couldn’t hold that agelong to proclaim our emotion and committedness to each other. Thank you, everyone for your support!”

2. She’s an engineering manager.

Amy’s existent concern is an engineering manager. She’s been moving astatine Fieldwire successful the San Francisco Bay Area since May 2021, according to her LinkedIn page. Before that, Amy was employed arsenic an engineering manager astatine SoftBank Robotics America from December 2019 to May 2021. She besides antecedently worked arsenic an engineering pb and a bundle developer. She attended University of Dayton for assemblage and studied machine science, according to her LinkedIn.

Amy Schneider (Photo: Jeopardy Productions, Inc.)

3. She’s a trans woman.

Amy has been unfastened astir being a trans pistillate passim her appearances on Jeopardy!. However, successful a Twitter thread astatine the extremity of November 2021, Amy explained however she didn’t privation her stint connected the amusement to beryllium “too overmuch astir being trans.” She added, “The information is, I don’t really deliberation astir being trans each that often, and truthful erstwhile appearing connected nationalist television, I wanted to correspond that portion of my individuality accurately: arsenic important, but besides comparatively minor. But I besides didn’t privation it to look arsenic if it was immoderate benignant of shameful secret. While it’s gratifying to cognize that radical didn’t needfully cognize I was trans until they work astir it, I bash privation radical to cognize that facet of me. I deliberation being trans is truly cool!”

4. She was robbed.

Ahead of her 25th crippled connected January 4, Amy revealed connected Twitter that she was robbed. “Hi all! So, archetypal off: I’m fine,” she tweeted, earlier adding, “But I got robbed yesterday, mislaid my ID, recognition cards, and phone. I past couldn’t truly slumber past night, and person been dragging myself astir each time trying to regenerate everything.” Amy past said that due to the fact that of the robbery, she apt wouldn’t beryllium penning her crippled thread for the Jan. 4 episode. “And if I support winning, it whitethorn instrumentality a spot for maine to get caught up,” Amy said. “Thanks for your patience!”

5. She’s made ‘Jeopardy’ history.

There’s a fewer ways that Amy has made Jeopardy! history. For starters, she’s the first transgender contestant to scope the adjacent Tournament of Champions, which erstwhile champs similar Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher, and Brian Chang are besides eligible for. She’s besides the archetypal pistillate to interruption the apical net spots and is the show’s top-earning trans contestant. Plus, Amy broke erstwhile contestant Julia Collins‘ grounds of astir consecutive wins for a woman, aft winning her 21st lucifer connected December 28. (Julia had antecedently acceptable the grounds with 20 wins successful 2014.) “In my highest of precocious hopes, I ne'er dreamed of matching Julia’s streak,” Amy wrote connected Twitter, aft her historical victory. “It’s hard to accidental however I felt: proud, dazed, happy, numb, each those things,” she added.

Mayim Bialik, who shares Jeopardy! hosting duties with erstwhile champion Ken Jennings, spoke astir Amy’s dominance successful an EXCLUSIVE interrogation with HollywoodLife successful February 2022. “Her run was historical successful truthful galore ways,” the Call Me Kat star said. “You know, she’s a really, truly almighty figure. And I deliberation it’s besides truthful important to constituent retired that, I see Jeopardy a nonpartisan, non-political place. It’s a spot wherever radical privation to tune successful to beryllium entertained by radical successful tremendous intellect. And Amy did that. Representation matters successful the civilization that we unrecorded in,” she added.

Following Amy’s humanities infinitesimal of crossing the $1 milllion people successful January, Nick Adams, GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Representation told HollywoodLife, “Amy Schneider’s unthinkable tally connected Jeopardy! allows families each implicit the state to get to cognize her arsenic idiosyncratic who is large astatine connection puzzles, has in-depth cognition connected a scope of topics, and who besides happens to beryllium a transgender woman. Amy is utilizing her history-making appearances and caller level to rise consciousness of transgender issues and stock a spot of her idiosyncratic communicative too.”