Amy Schneider Talks Life Beyond Jeopardy! in New Memoir: ‘I’m Not Comfortable Keeping Things Secret’ (Exclusive)

Amy Schneider has quite a story to tell. In 2021, the software engineer from Oakland found herself in the public eye after a significant reign Danger! By the end of her 40-day streak, Schneider, 44, who has since become the show’s most successful contestant, abandoned her 9-5 routine after racking up more than $1 million in winnings. In addition to establishing herself as a fan favorite, Schneider has also become a visible figure within the transgender community; she visited the White House to mark Transgender Day of Visibility and testify against anti-transgender laws in Ohio, where she grew up. For Schneider, however, the person viewers saw on their televisions every night was only a small part of the picture. In his new memoir, In question form, out now from Avid Reader Press, the writer details her off-screen life—from her religious upbringing with an alcoholic parent, to her previous time in a polyamorous marriage. She shares stories about her various experiences with drugs and the moments when she first began to question her gender identity.

‘In the form of a question’ by Amy Schneider.

Written wittily and transparently, as well as the occasional passionate chapter on pop culture gems like 90s MTV Daria, In the form of a question is both a multifaceted portrait and an ode to learning. Read LJUDI’s interview with Schneider below.

You said you wanted to show the “mess” in your life with this book. How is that? I think I’ve always been someone who tries to err on the side of transparency. It’s just easier that way. I’m not comfortable keeping things a secret. As for that confusion, that’s something that came up as the writing went on. I was thinking about [how] I spoke so much about myself within this set of parameters. A lot of things I didn’t talk about [before was] because it was not family. [So I wrote about] things I find interesting. I don’t want to give people a false idea of ​​who I am and what I stand for. What surprised you in the writing process? It’s hard. I never wrote anything that I seriously thought would be published, at least not in any massive way. When I wrote the book proposal, it went quickly. I just thought writing a book would be the same way. And then, as soon as the contract was signed and I was writing the actual book, it was like, “Oh, wow, this is a completely different feeling, that everything I write is going to be printed on paper and sent all over the country.” It’s a different pressure. You include footnotes in the book that serve as another source of dialogue between you and the reader. They are particularly effective in the chapter where you talk about your diagnosis of ADD as an adult. Can you talk more about that experience “It’s really was an incredibly empowering diagnosis to receive because it allowed me to reframe so many things that would have made me beat myself up. [I saw] not as moral defects, but as my brain works in a certain way, and I am able to do some things, and other things will fall harder for me. I don’t get down on myself because I can’t reach things on the shelf like I could if I was taller. In the same way, I don’t need to stress over the fact that I’m struggling not to fidget and struggle to pay attention in a work meeting.

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Amy Schneider.

Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty

You also write in the book that you started playing tarot, originally, as a way to meet women. I said meet the women. [It was also] a new thing to learn to develop my ability to tell stories on the spot. I didn’t expect it to actually be useful in a practical sense. I don’t believe in magic per se and I didn’t think there was anything to that effect. [But] there were periods and times in my life when it actually helped me make a decision I was struggling to make. It made me think about what I believe and where the limits of my atheism collide with the limits of human knowledge and the limits of knowledge about [ourselves].

Does tarot provide a different way of looking at a belief system than your previous experience with religion? Although I have been and remain an atheist for a long time, it still has limitations. There are just things that are impossible to know permanently. This is something I struggled with in my more dogmatic days as an atheist computer programmer: that science itself can prove its own limitations and that it’s just a human endeavor like anything else. It does not provide definitive answers in terms of the purpose of life. Tarot was a way for me to think about things. I have a spiritual side and that is important and nourishing to me, even if it doesn’t involve anything I can imagine as God or a supernatural being.

‘Danger!’ Champion Amy Schneider would ‘definitely consider’ hosting the show after her winning streak

You watched Danger! growing up. What surprised you the most in the competition? I was better than I thought. I think most competitors find that they overestimated themselves when they get there. You watch at home and remember everyone you miss, and you assume that every time one of the contestants succeeds, all three of them probably knew. You overestimate how good people are on television. Another thing [is] it’s just so fast. If you get inside your head for 60 seconds, it could be over. There could be thousands of dollars that changed hands in those few seconds when you weren’t fully focused.

Amy Schneider on ‘Jeopardy!’

Christopher Willard/ABC via Getty

You write about how you were afraid of how people would react to your voice. Can you talk more about that experience? I think that every trans person has some things about their gender presentation that they are most sensitive to. For me, [it was] my hair, but I filled it in surgically. After that, it was my voice, because hormones don’t do anything to your voice if you’re past puberty. I get “sir” a lot on the phone and it gives me a little shake every time it happens. That’s what I liked least about myself. I didn’t want it to be on national television, but at the same time… that’s who I am. That’s what my voice sounds like. So I just had to accept that it was going to be worse and I wasn’t going to like it. Watching the first two episodes on TV, I hated it. But it threw me off the deep end because I was on TV for 40 nights straight and then doing interviews, and it just got to the point where it was like, “I can’t care about this anymore. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, so I’ll just stop letting it bother me.”

Amy Schneider on representing her community, making parents ‘feel better’ about their loved ones’ futures

You also touch on how your view of what it means to be trans has changed over the years. How is that? I think what changed was not so much my view of being trans, because that changed when I became trans, but being on television changed my view of what motivates people who are resistant to trans people in society and resistant to our equality. Looking back and thinking about the people I grew up with, [I realized] that very few of them were motivated by those truly hateful views. It was just what they were brought up to believe and nothing made them question it, because it’s just human nature. It taught me that a large percentage of people who are afraid of trans people just don’t know anything. What do you hope your readers will take away from the book? The people you see on TV, you only see a small slice of them. Another thing is how valuable it is to study, obviously in Danger! sense, but only in a broader sense. How important it is to be willing to question things and to be willing to make mistakes, and to be, as you learn, open to the fact that you might learn things that make you question yourself, and that that’s okay.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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Source: HIS Education