Amy Schneider Made History on Jeopardy
By: Mallory Johnson
Amy Schneider recently made history as a 40-game Jeopardy champion. She is a brilliant, smart, and confident queer transgender woman. I loved watching her games. She won $1,382,800 across all 40 of her games, which according to Time magazine, “put her in fourth place on the regular season winnings list, behind host Ken Jennings ($2,520,700), James Holzhauer ($2,462,216), and Matt Ammodio ($1,518,601).” About being a transgender woman on television, Amy said, “I think the main thing that I got out of this was being okay with myself, how I look, how I present to the world. I’ve been openly trans for a little under five years now, and there’s still definitely lingering worry and dysphoria and things like that.” She continued, “Just to get so much positive feedback, so much support and so much acceptance, it enabled me - by the end of it - to look at myself on TV and be like, ‘Oh, you know, she’s pretty, she’s fun, what a likeable person.’ And I’ve never been able to see myself that way before.”
The fact that Amy watching her own Jeopardy appearances helped in her self-love and self-acceptance journey is powerful. I am positive that it will help other transgender people in their journeys. I am also sure that it could help people who are transphobic look inwards and change their beliefs. In one episode, Amy proudly talked about how her girlfriend, Genevieve, helps her study for pop culture clues and I loved how casually the host Ken Jennings and Amy talked about it - I love how normalized her gender and sexuality were on the show! Amy is a smart, confident woman, and she made history when she won the most consecutive Jeopardy games of any female contestant! In an interview, Amy emphasized that for her, the positive transgender visibility is priceless. Even though her long run competing on Jeopardy is over, her historic mark left on the game will not be forgotten.