This Jeopardy! champion is taking a stand against an Ohio bill she says would "have devastating consequences for trans kids." Who is ... Amy Schneider?
Schneider, who made history as the first transgender person to qualify for the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, testified in Ohio on Wednesday against a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for minors. The 40-time Jeopardy! champion told the Ohio state legislature that if she hadn't been able to access hormone therapy, "I don't know that I could go on living."
She went on to tell lawmakers that she lived "with agony" for "decades" before coming out as trans and receiving gender-affirming care. When she did, "I knew peace and quiet for the first time," she said, adding that trans kids in Ohio have received a similar level of peace through the same care.
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"What I'm asking here today: Please don't take that away from them," Schneider said. "Please don't force them to go back to that constant feeling of wrongness and danger."
She urged lawmakers to vote no on "this dangerous bill" and not "restrict the freedom of families and doctors and community to decide for themselves what their children need."
Schneider competed on Jeopardy! from Nov. 2021 to Jan. 2022 and became the first woman to ever win $1 million on the quiz show. She also achieved the second-longest winning streak of all time. She's currently competing in the finals of the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, and has been sharing commentary on her games on Twitter. But on Tuesday, Schneider said she was putting that on pause to speak out against this bill.
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