‘Jeopardy!’ champion Amy Schneider is back on screens after the College Professors Tournament two-week hiatus and she is continuing to rack up records with her now 14 consecutive wins.
The software engineer from California has earned $571,200 during her 14-day reign making her, thus far, the fourth-biggest money winner in regular season play in the trivia game show’s history.
She has won more money than any other woman on the show, but still trails Julia Collins who has the fourth-longest streak of consecutive victories, behind now host Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, and Matt Amodio, but the highest of any woman with a total of 20 wins.
‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Amy Schneider Opens Up About Being Transgender During ‘Fun Fact’ Chat
Amy takes the record of the highest winning and longest-running transgender contestant on the show’s history and gave audiences a little more of her backstory this week.
Though she considers herself as “out”, and has spoken in interviews and even tweeted about being a transgender woman during her awe-inspiring run, it wasn’t until she likened herself to Frank L. Baum’s character, Ozma of Oz that many audiences members knew of her history.
During the ‘fun facts’ section of the Monday, December 20th episode, host, Jennings asked about Amy’s Ozma of Oz tattoo. Amy said she could relate to the character who was raised as a boy before she was able to turn into the princess she truly is.
While Amy is not the first openly transgender champion on the show, that accolade belongs to Kate Freeman who became a champion almost one year prior to Amy’s appearance, she is the first to make it into the Tournament of Champions.
Schneider, who viewed Freeman’s victory and several other trans contestants’ appearances on the show as inspiration, has described the significance of her gender identity and subsequent representation as “really cool, but also relatively minor.”
“Being trans is an important, huge foundational part of my identity and also, not,” Schneider has said. “I’m not going on Jeopardy! to be trans on Jeopardy! I’m going on Jeopardy! to try to win some money.”
Welp, she sure is doing that!
Something else that is “really cool”? Her winning streak began during Trans Awareness Week.
Catch Amy’s Jeopardy! reign, weeknights on ABC.
For any other soap opera and entertainment news, please visit again Daily Soap Dish. Don’t forget to visit The Go To Family for all of the latest travel news!.
