Dayton native Amy Schneider is back on Jeopardy! She's competing in the Tournament of Champions. Schneider is the most winning female player of all time, and she’s the first openly transgender person to make the Tournament of Champions. WYSO’s Jason Reynolds asked her about all the attention she’s been getting…
Jason Reynolds: A lot has changed, obviously, since your first Jeopardy! run. You've become a voice, a symbol for the trans community, and you were thrust into the role. But at the same time, you seem to have embraced it. You were the star of the Trans Day of Visibility at the White House. Tell me about that trip and about going from being openly trans to being really, really visible.
Amy Schneider: Yeah! It's certainly something that—maybe three, four years ago—would have seemed really scary to me. I think it's true for most trans people that the visibility can be pretty uncomfortable. The thing about being trans is if you're out, then you're just sort of visibly trans, everywhere you go, whatever you're doing, and it can be overwhelming.
I'd kind of gotten past that by the time I decided to start trying out for Jeopardy! again. And then I knew once I was winning those games that it was going to be a big deal of some sort.
It's been bigger than I thought, and so I just felt kind of a responsibility to put my best face forward and show everybody that trans people are people and can succeed in various things and are who we are.
The trip to the White House, that was, obviously, a huge honor. And that, again, the realization that a President of the United States could think it was a good political move to invite a trans person to the White House would have been unthinkable for almost my entire life. So, that really hit home, just how far we've come that that would even be something that would be considered.
Jason Reynolds: And you also got married, right? To Genevieve Davis? Tell us a little bit about your wedding.
Amy: It was the first wedding of two, because we want to have a whole ceremony with the family and everything like that. But with how busy our life is, there was no way we were going to get that planned for this year. And we kind of needed to get married this year for tax purposes.
So, we’d gotten some dresses, and then at the last minute we put on some flower crowns and just had three friends, and we went and did it. It was really nice. It was just about us. It wasn't about a big spectacle or anything like that. And it was something, especially being in the public eye all of a sudden, it was nice to have something that was just private and was just, you know, not anybody else's business.
Jason: I'm curious, too, about this beautiful tattoo on your arm that I don't think I'd ever seen before your wedding photos. And I heard some stories about it. Could you tell me about this tattoo?
Amy: Yeah, absolutely. So it's a tattoo of Ozma of Oz. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz, then went on to write a dozen or so sequels, and in all of them, Ozma is the ruler of Oz. Her backstory is that she was the rightful heir to the throne, was kidnaped as an infant by an evil sorceress, and then enchanted and raised as a boy until she was a teenager. Then, the enchantment was lifted and she was revealed to be the beautiful Princess Ozma that she had always been. So, when I transitioned—I loved those books as a kid—and so it just seemed like such an obvious thing to do.
Jason: What would it mean to win the Tournament of Champions?
Amy: It would validate quitting my day job and sort of being a game show winner full time or whatever it is that I'm doing now. That would really help me feel good about that choice. And I think the other thing is, like everybody, I've got a certain amount of imposter syndrome. You know, I did great, but so did these other people. And maybe I just got lucky and blah, blah, blah… Those thoughts come into your mind. So to be able to beat some people who are also really good would quiet that down and let me believe that I'm actually really good at Jeopardy!
Jason: You should believe it!
Amy: I can see that I should believe it now, but, you know, that's how the brain is.
Jason: The last question is kind of “choose your own soundbite.” If somebody is driving down the road — say here in Dayton — and they hear you on the radio, what would you want them to hear you say?
Amy: I guess I'd want them to hear that I'm so glad and proud to be from Dayton, and I feel like being raised there was really good for me.
But the main thing I want to say to everyone is to be curious. Be open to learning. Be open to being wrong. You can't learn without learning things that contradict what you already believe. And take that as an opportunity. Take that as an opportunity to not be wrong about that thing anymore. That's how I've always lived my life.