Part 3 of NYT article
There is an unfortunate pattern of “Jeopardy!” alums — particularly women — being targeted online after their appearances. Former contestants have recounted incidents that included insults, creepy messages and outright threats.
To prepare for this, Ms. Schneider followed the guidance offered to all new contestants by the show’s producers, including locking down her social media accounts. She also created the public-facing @Jeopardamy Instagram and Twitter accounts. Still, these precautions didn’t prevent harassment online.
So far, she has mostly ignored the vitriol directed at her, or responded with sarcasm, as she did in a “thank you” tweet she posted on New Year’s Eve.
Several weeks ago, Ms. Schneider was robbed at gunpoint in the lobby of her apartment building. She was not physically harmed and stressed that she doesn’t think the incident was related to her appearance on “Jeopardy!” Still, it’s not her favorite thing to talk about.
“I tweeted about it, and so it was public, and that’s on me,” she said. “But to have people in my life find out about this thing that happened to me by seeing a news article was a slightly unsettling thing to happen.”
When she was preparing to compete, Ms. Schneider had to decide how she wanted to look. She brought along a favorite pink blazer and made a few trips to Target and Nordstrom Rack. She said she “overpacked” jewelry, but after she won a few games in the pearls she thought audiences might like it if she continued with a signature accessory.
She also considered how she wanted to sound.
“I’ve got a more feminine voice when I really want to, and I’d sort of been planning on using that voice on TV,” she said. But she ultimately decided that consciously altering her voice could affect her gameplay and chose to speak in her usual register. She’s proud of that decision.
“Trans women watching can see me with my voice as it is and see me being OK with it,” she said.
Her voice had once been a source of dysphoria for Ms. Schneider, but now she is considering turning it into a career. She recently signed with the talent agency CAA and said that she’s interested in voice acting.
She is also weighing a return to podcasting. She and her ex-wife used to co-host a “Downton Abbey” podcast, and she hosted a show about “Moby-Dick” and a tarot podcast called “These Are Just Cards.”
“Jeopardy!” forbids contestants to appear on other game shows for six months after they are on the show, but after that Ms. Schneider is also open to more game show appearances, which could be well suited to her preternatural response time.
She practiced for “Jeopardy!” using click pens and said she didn’t know she had a gift for buzzing in until she was on the show. This fact will no doubt frustrate many contestants, some of whom train with special buzzers, designed to mimic those used in the “Jeopardy!” studios, to shave milliseconds from their buzzes.
On Friday, Ms. Schneider went to the Heart and Dagger Saloon in Oakland to watch herself play. She settled onto a bar stool to order a sauvignon blanc and a pack of Parliament Lights.
Another customer asked a bartender if the TV would be tuned to the Warriors game. “No, we’re watching ‘Jeopardy!’” the bartender replied, nodding to Ms. Schneider. The man lit up when he recognized the champion sitting next to him. “Unbelievable! Cheers!” he said, toasting her. Moments later, a bearded man sitting next to him leaned over and asked, “You got robbed?”
Ms. Schneider smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I got robbed.”
Over the course of the show’s 30 minutes, two patrons sent free drinks, which were happily accepted by Ms. Schneider.
