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Trans Lesbian Amy Schneider Wins Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions
"I'm going to keep going out there and being me. Being in places where people like me haven’t been before, it’s a very powerful thing to do."
Once again, Amy Schneider has proven herself one of the smartest women in America.
Schneider, who is trans and a lesbian, won Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions against software developer Andrew He and associate professor of operations research Sam Buttrey.
The Tournament of Champions was set up so that whoever won three games first would be crowned the ultimate champion. Scheider won three games, He won two, and Buttrey won one. Schneider took home $250,000 as a prize.
"I feel amazing," Schneider said after her win. "Earlier in the finals, I had this sudden moment of seeing myself and being like 'I'm on stage in the Tournament of Champions finals,' and that was crazy. And I won! It's a great feeling."
The matchup was actually a rematch for Schneider and He. Back during Schneider's first run on Jeopardy!, when she won 40 games in a row and became the winningest woman in the history of the show, He was the one to end her streak.
"I both wanted to [go against him] and was afraid of facing him again," Schneider said about He. "I knew he was one of the top competitors in the field. He was definitely someone that I knew could beat me because he very nearly did before, and he did a couple of times here as well."
"Any of the three of us really could have won if a very small number of things had gone differently," she continued. "I'm glad we got a really fair chance to test our skills against each other, and I'd love to play him again someday, somehow."
During her appearance, Schneider talked about a new tattoo she got on her arm recently. The tattoo of the Princess Ozma character from author L. Frank Baum's Oz book series symbolizes her trans identity, as in the books, Ozma is a princess who was raised as a boy but later found out she was really a girl.
She also emphasized the importance of being an out trans woman with a platform.
"I'm going to keep going out there and being me. Being in places where people like me haven't been before, it's a very powerful thing to do," she said.
Congratulations to Amy!
RELATED | Trans Jeopardy! Champ Amy Schneider Just Got Married to Her Fiancee
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Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
