'Jeopardy' Contestant Wants To 'Send A Positive Message To The Nerdy Trans Girl'

Schneider is the ‘first of many’ openly trans person to qualify for the tournament of the iconic quiz show

Start getting your excuses ready now. Our go-to is that it’s allergy season or that some jerk is cutting onions again, but either way, be prepared for your eyes to get a little misty. Amy Schneider (who uses she/her pronouns), an engineering manager, became the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for a spot in Jeopardy’s tournament of top winners. After extending her wins to 10 in a row, Schneider talked to KGO-TV (San Francisco) about the importance of representation to young people.

“I am so incredibly grateful,” Schneider said. “Hopefully I can send a positive message to the nerdy trans girl who wants to be on the show too.” Now is the time for me to loudly proclaim to anyone within earshot that someone really should stop cutting onions so close to my laptop.

The execs at Jeopardy seem to be charmed by her as well.

Last week, Schneider tweeted about what it was like to walk off the Jeopardy set after winning a hundred thousand dollars. “Weekend thoughts: -So, what does one do after winning $100K in the course of an afternoon?” Schneider began the tweet. “I got my things, and walked to the parking garage, feeling great. “I guess I’m pretty smart!” I thought. Then I spend 20 minutes wandering around the parking garage looking for my car.”

(Did you catch Schneider’s Twitter handle? It’s Jeopardamy. So adorably cute, right?

“I’m not going to pretend I didn’t think I could do good, but this is just so much better than I thought I would do,” she said of her winnings.

The engineering manager also took to Twitter to explain her game strategy, and the results are appropriate for an ultimate gamer. “My general wagering strategy for a runaway game like this was: round up the second place score to the nearest thousand, double it, subtract it from my score, and then subtract another thousand in case I’d messed something up,” Schneider explained to her followers. “So $5800->$6000->$12000, $30000-$12000-$1000=$17000.”

Ummm. Okay, Amy. I’m sitting over here snort-laughing and trying not to choke on pretzels while watching puppy videos on TikTok, and you’re on Twitter doing advanced calculus. Go ahead with your smart self, Amy!