Trans Jeopardy! champ Amy Schneider has made game show history again

Jeopardy! women’s champion Amy Schneider has made history by finishing second in the trivia game show’s first-ever Invitational Tournament, where past champions and fan favorites compete for a $100,000 first-place prize and a spot in the Jeopardy! Masters tournament of top champs.

Schneider, a transgender writer from California, won the first game of the tournament’s final round last Friday. With $30,000 at the game’s end, she beat Andrew He, a stay-at-home dad from California (who ended the game with $9,600), and Victoria Groce, a writer from Pennsylvania (who ended the game with $29,199). The tournament’s rules stated that the first contestant to win two games would snag the top prize.

Related:

Lesbian Jeopardy! contestant Mattea Roach is on a winning streak & she’s raking in the cash

Another member of the LGBTQ community is tearing her way through Jeopardy!

On Monday, Schneider lost the second game of the final round to Groce, ending the game with $37,601 compared to Groce’s $52,001. On Tuesday, Groce won the tournament, beating Schneider’s $8,600 with a final score of $20,001. However, Schneider didn’t go home empty-handed — she won $50,000 as the tournament’s first runner-up.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

Schneider is an Ohio native who gained national fame after winning 40 consecutive games on the quiz show in 2021. She became a champion in the middle of Trans Awareness Week and eventually lost to a queer librarian from Chicago.

Nonetheless, Schneider still made history in 2022 by becoming the first woman to win the most consecutive regular-season episodes of Jeopardy!, the first woman to make it to $1 million on the show, and the highest-earning woman ever to appear on the show. She is also the first out trans contestant ever to make it to the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions.

She has since shared details of her romantic life, made high-profile appearances, and even addressed the White House press room. She has also become an outspoken public figure for trans rights.

In June 2022, she delivered the first pitch at a Giants-Dodgers Major League Baseball game. Later that same year, she testified against a trans youth health care ban in her native-born state of Ohio and spoke alongside trans youth icon Zaya Wade about the responsibilities of being a famous trans person. She also recently spoke out against The New York Times’ anti-transgender coverage and published a new memoir entitled, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life.

In a November 2021 editorial for Newsweek, Schneider wrote, “It’s a strange thing to think that I have made history as the first trans person to qualify for the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions. It was inspirational for me to see transgender contestants on the show before I became a contestant and I hope that I am now doing that same thing for all the other trans Jeopardy! fans out there…I hope I have given them the opportunity to see a trans person succeed.”