Jeopardy champ Amy Schneider has lived a life asking 'why?' (2024)

Amy Schneider made more than just Jeopardy history after winning 40 consecutive games (second only to Ken Jennings), she also made television history as the first transgender woman to do so. Her achievements led to a slew of reactions from fans for someone who "did not expect to be famous at any point in my life." She's turned those questions into a new book, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster). For Schneider, she was not trying to make history. "All I was doing was fulfilling a childhood dream and, by way of winning a million dollars, I was also able to do a lot of good for people in my community" by just being honest about her transgender identity. In fact, the question she says she gets most often from people is whether "the show was rigged." Even though she's aware her very identity makes her "a representative of your community every time you walk out the door," she's grateful that the production of Jeopardy "never brought the subject up. They didn't focus on it at all."

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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

In 8th grade, your class voted you "Most likely to appear on Jeopardy." I'm not sure I would have gotten the same thing. But, looking back, how does it feel to have reached this place professionally?

There's an aspect of that whole "most likely to appear on Jeopardy" thing that I always felt I didn't deserve as much credit for because I know that a big chunk of it was just that I happen to have a good memory. It's not something that I worked at, I just had it. But I think that, since this has all happened and I've been trying to be more honest with myself, I've been like, you know, actually, I am quite proud of this. I am proud of this accomplishment and how well I did. It took more than just that memory. It took a lot of studying over the years, and it took a lot of poise, handling the pressure and all of that sort of thing. I'm proud of having achieved that.

What I love about the book is that the chapters are all questions that you almost certainly get often. After your run on Jeopardy, were you surprised by the questions you got from people? And what was a surprising question you got?

I mean, it was somewhat overwhelming, for sure. I did not expect to be famous at any point in my life. And then I went from having no reason to expect that would ever happen, and then a couple of months later, there it was. So it was definitely a lot to take in. In terms of questions, they all sort of blurred together.

Well, you wrote a whole book of questions you get, so I'm sure they've all blurred together.

There definitely are a bunch that I get regularly. I guess one that I've gotten a lot more often than I would have expected is people asking me if the show was rigged. A lot more people suspect that than I would ever have thought.

What's it like to be in the elite group of Jeopardy champions? And is it ever competitive among the group?

Not really. I think it is more of a thing that we all have this shared experience that nobody else has had. And we also all share a respect and love of the game. Otherwise, we wouldn't have worked so hard at it. And obviously, it's rewarded us, so we're naturally inclined to be fans of Jeopardy. We really all get along. Like that Jeopardy Masters tournament, we were just really having fun. I mean, we're all competitive people to an extent or we wouldn't be there. But that's pretty much just on the stage, and off stage we're just hanging out.

The show has been on for years, but in the last 15 years or so, it seems like there have been more attention-grabbing champions with long-run victories. Why do you think that's happening all of a sudden?

Well, one thing is for the first half or so of its run, you couldn't win more than five games in a row. If you did, then they were just done. And then, right around when they changed that, Ken Jennings comes along and wins 73, which having now won 40, I was so drained and exhausted by all of that that the idea of him winning 33 more is just even more impressive to me now than it was then. But I remember when that happened, the feeling was, well, this is just going to be the new normal that every once in a while somebody will come on and just dominate. And then it didn't really happen. I mean, it's never happened to that extent, obviously. Until the last two to three years, suddenly, it does seem to have jumped up a bit. And I honestly don't have a good theory as to why. I've heard different people's explanations, and none of them seem to quite add up to me. At first, I just think it's statistical chance that there's just been a cluster of them. But that doesn't feel very satisfying to me, either. I do think the one thing that has changed is James Holzhauer. When he played, he really brought a level of optimized gameplay and really thinking through the right strategies and ways of wagering and things like that. And since then, there's the community at the Jeopardy subreddit, people like that, have really explored those things. So, there are more people that take that gameplay aspect seriously, which might be a bit of a factor. But I honestly didn't [do that], and I had a big streak, so I don't know.

There are so few examples of trans people in general on television, and certainly not on Jeopardy. How did you navigate being such a figurehead for so many different types of people when you're just trying to compete?

Some of the things that made it easier were that first of all, all the games were taped before any of them aired. And second of all, the people on Jeopardy, the crew and production and everything, didn't make a deal about it at all. Like if I had never brought the subject up, they would never have mentioned that I was trans. And so they didn't focus on it at all and it made it easier for me not to focus on it. But for a lot of different types of people, but trans people, I think, most specifically, you are a representative of your community every time you walk out the door. There's not that many trans people. It is very rare for me to be in a room of people and not be the only trans person in that room. And so, to some extent, ever since coming out, I've always been slightly conscious of the fact that I am currently representing trans people to my co-workers or just whatever situation I'm in.

I think you did so much just by showing up and competing as yourself. That says so much and is bigger than any other political statement.

All I was doing was fulfilling a childhood dream and also, by the way of winning a million dollars, in doing that, was also able to do a lot of good for people that in my community could really use all the help they can get.

Another thing I took from the book, which really isn't a surprise but I still loved it, but you're kind of a geek for some pop culture. You write about your love for the MTV animated sitcom Daria, which was SO influential on me and my humor. What was it about Daria that you loved so much?

I think, Daria specifically it's an amazing show because of the way that it has this whole cast of characters that are all extremely like one note and cartoonish. Kevin and Brittany are dumb and Mr. DeMartino is angry and as you watch the show, you come to sympathize with them and understand that they're deeper, more complex people, even as they never really get deeper and more complex, they still have that one note, but they just add all these little tiny shadings to them that are really impressive. As a very Daria-esque person that was smart and sarcastic and didn't want to show any emotion, realizing that all these people that I felt I couldn't connect to or relate to that, actually, if I gave them a chance and got past my first impressions that I could [connect with them] and that Daria had more friends than she ever let herself believe—and probably so did I.

You also write a lot about your use of tarot and the value you get out of it. What is it about tarot that you connect with?

I think it's sort of a helpful way of thinking about what types of people there are in the world. Every time you're doing a reading, you're getting a new situation and a new insight. And that's why I don't actually think that tarot has some kind of supernatural power. I think that it happens to be a great tool of self-reflection and self-analysis. It gives you these random images and symbols and meanings. And in the exercise of being like, "Okay, how did these symbols apply to my life?" And it gets you coming at your own brain, your own internal cell from a different angle, and can see things that you wouldn't have otherwise.

Do you travel with a pack of tarot cards?

I do. Yes.

Do you ever just randomly bust them out at events?

I do, occasionally. It is my icebreaker with people in certain circ*mstances. And every once in a while, if I'm feeling that I want to get out of some kind of headspace that I'm in, then I'll use them for that.

We're at a crossroads when it comes to the conversation arounds trans issues, and I'll be honest, it's difficult for me to see some of the news coverage (both the stories but also how they're covered). Being a high-profile trans woman, I'm sure this moment is also difficult for you. Do you think we're going in a positive direction, and what concerns you about this present moment?

I think that part of it just depends on what kind of time frame you look at. You talk about how the media represents trans people now, [but] go back and look at any media from the '80s or '90s, when I was growing up. I've so often had the experience of watching something that I remember liking as a younger person, and [then] coming across some really offensive joke aimed at people like me. So we have come a dramatically far distance in the last 10, 20, 30 years in terms of trans people's acceptance in society. If you look at the direction over the last two to three years, it's not good, obviously. But it's only possible to have a backlash because of the progress that we've made. So I think that it's definitely frightening and upsetting, but I also think that it is a temporary setback. And I think that the underlying trends are going to keep moving in our direction because I think that once anybody comes to accept trans people as being just the ordinary people that they are, they don't end up going back to opposing it. We're not going to move backwards, it's just the people that never got it are being more angry right now.

I do think it's interesting that, when you were on your winning streak, there certainly was coverage about your trans identity, but it wasn't the focus and there certainly wasn't colossal backlash. I wonder if it would be different today.

I do know what you mean. I feel like the climate that we're in kind of had started by the time I was on Jeopardy, although I guess it's fair to argue otherwise [about the current climate] with [trans TikToker] Dylan Mulvaney and everything. I think that the reason that backlash didn't come to me the way I was expecting—I was expecting a lot more vitriol coming my way—was because there wasn't any angle to use it when I was on Jeopardy playing. It wasn't a political thing. I didn't intend it as one, and it wasn't. And so there wasn't anything to say except here's this person winning a bunch of games on Jeopardy.

In your book, you've spent a lifetime asking the question, "Why?" I think it's the most important question anybody can ask. Why do you think more people should simply ask, "Why?"

Part of it is just I think that anyone could develop this pleasure in learning new things, and you can't learn new things without asking those types of questions. So, there's just that little dopamine or whatever that fires off my brain. And so that's nice by itself. But I think more than that if you're not finding out as much as you can about the world around you and why it works and how it works, then you're going to be at a disadvantage against the people who do, and some of them are not well-intentioned people and will try to exploit your lesser understanding of the world to scam you in various ways. And you also need it for yourself, because I, perhaps more dramatically than some people, have gone through so many evolutions in my life to becoming different people in kind of dramatic ways. There were times when I was refusing to ask "but why?" about myself and it left me stuck in places that weren't right, just because I didn't want to deal with the discomfort of thinking about something being wrong.

And if you keep asking "why?" you might win a million dollars on Jeopardy.

Which I definitely recommend doing if you can. It's pretty great.

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