‘Jeopardy!’ Icon Amy Schneider Fires Back at Trolls Still Using Her Birth Name
Jeopardy! superstar Amy Schneider is paying no mind to cruel strangers who call her by her male name from before her transition when they see her in public.
On Thursday (November 15), the 40-day champion and 2022 Tournament of Champions winner took to X to reflect on times she’s been “deadnamed.” Dead-naming is the act of referring to a transgender or non-binary person by a name they used prior to transitioning, such as their birth name.
“It’s funny to me when people try to deadname me by calling me ‘Thomas’, a name that I never went by,” she wrote. “I was Tommy, then Tom, and now Amy. Get your facts straight, intrusive weirdos!”
It’s funny to me when people try to deadname me by calling me “Thomas”, a name that I never went by. I was Tommy, then Tom, and now Amy. Get your facts straight, intrusive weirdos!
— Amy Schneider (@Jeopardamy) November 14, 2024
Fans flooded the comments section, loving Schneider’s humorous retort about her name having never been Thomas in her eyes and how she made light of the unthinkable situation by turning it into a piece of trivia.
“I’d rather just call you the GOAT,” one fan commented.
“Something about this is so funny to me. “If you’re gonna deadname me, do it right a**holes” is just the right attitude to have in this climate,” wrote another.
“So sorry you have to deal with that. Humans can be the worst! You have a lot of people behind you, though!” wrote a third.
“Your name is Amy period. Genius works too but it’s not your name,” wrote a fourth.
“One thing is for sure Amy, they are never going to beat you in a game of wits,” wrote a fifth.
“If they are willing to stoop to that level of mindless condescension towards someone they don’t even know, it seems like they truly do regard you as a woman after all,” wrote one more.
Schneider, 45, was born under her original name in Dayton, Ohio in 1979. In 2021, she would, of course, become the winningest female contestant ever ($1.3 million). Last year, Schneider released her first memoir, In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life. The tell-all got into unflinching detail about her personal life, including a largely unknown first marriage while still male.
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In the book, Schneider recalled growing up in the Boy Scouts. The “nightmare experience” made her realize, “I’m not a boy.” She also shared a formative experience where she watching Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio, making her also realize, “I simply didn’t like boys.” At the University of Dayton, she felt stuck, “While suicide held no appeal for me, staying alive didn’t seem that tempting, either.” She said the cult animated show Daria helped her persevere, “If Daria could survive this Sick Sad World, so could I.”
Schneider also opened up about meeting her first wife, Kelly, at age 21. The couple got married and decided to be polyamorous. She started cross-dressing at home in private, hiding heels and other clothing from her then-wife. “It seemed clear to me this was not a part of my life she had any interest in sharing.” That marriage, however, caused her to have a breakthrough.
In 2016, Schneider recalled journaling the day her first wife left her for someone outside their marriage: “Maybe I’ll try being a pirate for a while. Or a writer, or a woman.”
Amy transitioned soon after, ditching her “ugly, ill-fitting boy costume,” and the rest is history. “I realized that being trans in public carried responsibilities,” she shared about being a trailblazer on Jeopardy!. “To hide my voice began to feel like a betrayal to my community.”
Schneider now lives in Oakland, California, and is married to Genevieve Davis, 26. They tied the knot in a small private ceremony on May 9, 2022 at a courthouse in California. Amy’s $250,000 ToC win and $75,000 from Jeopardy! Masters Season 1 earned her $1.62 million in total winnings. She was unable to repeat her success in Masters Season 2 and finished in fourth place.
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