5 Things About Transgender ‘Jeopardy!’ Champion – Hollywood Life

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• Amy Schneider gained 40 video games and almost $1.4 million on Jeopardy!
• She is about to compete in ‘Jeopardy! Masters’ for the GOAT title in Might 2023.
• Amy is transgender.
• She received married in Might 2022.

Amy Schneider kicked butt on Jeopardy!, and dominated on the Event of Champions. The 43-year-old is now getting set to compete on Jeopardy! Masters in opposition to 5 different champions, together with Matt Amodio, Mattea Roach, Andrew He, Sam Buttrey and James Holzhauer, beginning on Might 8. The sport episodes can be aired on ABC and go on for 4 weeks, with a winner being introduced on Might 24. The winner will win a whopping $500,000.

Earlier than she made headlines with the Jeopardy! Masters information, Amy defeated Tyler Rhode and Maureen O’Neil within the Event of Champions semi-finals on Nov. 9, 2022, ending the match with $19,664. It secured her spot within the finals that started that Nov., the place the primary contestant to win three video games earned the $250,000 grand prize. On the conclusion of Sport 6 within the event, she gained first place and the highest prize of $250,000.

Amy instructed USA Right this moment how she ready for Event of Champions. “Principally, it was the identical stuff that I’ve been doing previous to my first run, simply going by way of outdated video games and searching for issues I didn’t know,” she mentioned. “I did observe writing down Remaining Jeopardy! solutions, as a result of the act of writing it down had thrown me off. I used to be simply visualizing all the situations which may occur.”

Hold readying to seek out out all the pieces it is advisable learn about Amy Schneider.

Amy is married.

Amy, who’s initially from Ohio however moved to Oakland, CA, married her girlfriend Genevieve in Might 2022 and waited till September to announce the massive information. She shared Instagram images of her and her new spouse on their special occasion, writing, “Genevieve and I are delighted to announce that on Monday, Might 9, we have been married in a small non-public ceremony on the Alameda County Recorder. We’ll nonetheless be having a standard wedding ceremony & reception subsequent summer time, however our lives have been a lot too busy this 12 months to get very far in planning it, and we couldn’t wait that lengthy to proclaim our love and dedication to one another. Thanks, everybody to your assist!”

She’s an engineering supervisor.

Amy’s present occupation is an engineering supervisor. She’s been working at Fieldwire within the San Francisco Bay Space since Might 2021, in response to her LinkedIn web page. Earlier than that, Amy was employed as an engineering supervisor at SoftBank Robotics America from December 2019 to Might 2021. She additionally beforehand labored as an engineering lead and a software program developer. She attended College of Dayton for school and studied pc science, in response to her LinkedIn.

She’s a trans girl.

Amy has been open about being a trans girl all through her appearances on Jeopardy!. Nonetheless, in a Twitter thread on the finish of November 2021, Amy defined how she didn’t need her stint on the present to be “an excessive amount of about being trans.” She added, “The actual fact is, I don’t truly take into consideration being trans all that always, and so when showing on nationwide tv, I wished to characterize that a part of my id precisely: as essential, but in addition comparatively minor. However I additionally didn’t need it to look as if it was some type of shameful secret. Whereas it’s gratifying to know that folks didn’t essentially know I used to be trans till they examine it, I do need individuals to know that side of me. I feel being trans is admittedly cool!”

She was robbed.

Forward of her twenty fifth sport on January 4, 2022, Amy revealed on Twitter that she was robbed. “Hello all! So, first off: I’m high quality,” she tweeted, earlier than including, “However I received robbed yesterday, misplaced my ID, bank cards, and cellphone. I then couldn’t actually sleep final night time, and have been dragging myself round all day making an attempt to switch all the pieces.” Amy then mentioned that due to the theft, she seemingly wouldn’t be writing her sport thread for the Jeopardy! episode that day. “And if I preserve profitable, it could take a bit for me to get caught up,” Amy mentioned. “Thanks to your persistence!”

Amy Schneider’s Winnings on Jeopardy

Amy gained 40 video games between November 2021 and January 2022 and is in fourth place for general winnings, together with tournaments, incomes $1,632,800. She additionally made Jeopardy! historical past in additional methods than one. For starters, she was the primary transgender contestant to achieve the Event of Champions, which earlier champs like Matt Amodio, Jonathan Fisher, and Brian Chang additionally competed in. She’s additionally the primary girl to interrupt the highest earnings spots and is the present’s top-earning trans contestant.

Amy grew to become the fourth contestant ever to go the $1 million mark on the quiz present and gained her first sport on November 17, 2021, earlier than persevering with to dominate proper by way of to January 26, 2022, when she misplaced to Chicago librarian Rhone Talsmam. She broke former contestant Julia Collins‘ file of most consecutive wins for a lady, after profitable her twenty first match on December 28. (Julia had beforehand set the file with 20 wins in 2014.)

“In my highest of excessive hopes, I by no means dreamed of matching Julia’s streak,” Amy wrote on Twitter, after her historic victory. “It’s exhausting to say how I felt: proud, dazed, comfortable, numb, all these issues,” she added.

Mayim Bialik, who shared Jeopardy! internet hosting duties with former champion Ken Jennings, spoke about Amy’s dominance in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife in February 2022. “Her run was historic in so some ways,” the Name Me Kat star mentioned. “You realize, she’s a very, actually highly effective determine. And I feel it’s additionally so essential to level out that, I take into account Jeopardy a nonpartisan, non-political place. It’s a spot the place individuals wish to tune in to be entertained by individuals in super mind. And Amy did that. Illustration issues within the tradition that we reside in,” she added.

Following Amy’s historic second of crossing the $1 milllion mark in January 2022, Nick Adams, GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Illustration instructed HollywoodLife, “Amy Schneider’s unbelievable run on Jeopardy! permits households everywhere in the nation to get to know her as somebody who’s nice at phrase puzzles, has in-depth data on a variety of matters, and who additionally occurs to be a transgender girl. Amy is utilizing her history-making appearances and new platform to boost consciousness of transgender points and share a little bit of her private story too.”

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