“Jeopardy!” champ Amy Schneider visited the White House on Thursday for Trans Day of Visibility, where she called several anti-trans bills “really scary,” but added she’s hopeful that the current wave of anti-trans legislation will “soon be seen as a thing of the past.”
After meeting with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Schneider told reporters, “I’m just really, really honored to be here and really grateful that this is being celebrated and the trans people are being celebrated in a place like this.”
When asked about bills that would ban trans youth from receiving gender-affirming healthcare or ones like Missouri’s “Save Women’s Sports Act” that would bar trans girls from junior high through college from girls’ teams, Schneider said, “They’re really scary.”
“Some of them in particular that are drying medical services to trans youth. Those are life-saving medical treatments, and … these bills will cause the deaths of children, and that’s really sad to me,” she added. “It’s really frightening.”
However, she believes support is growing for the trans community. “I think that this backlash right now is temporary,” she said. “The country overall is on our side and getting more so every day. And I think it’s not going to be too long before these sorts of bills are seen as a thing of the past. And no longer what we want to be as a country.”
Schneider has no plans “at the moment” to become an activist, saying, “I am trying to figure out where that sort of advocacy and activism fits into my life… I’m still playing it by ear. I would like to do more of it. But for right now, I’m just not sure what the right and effective way to do that would be.”
In the meantime, she’s glad to represent the trans community just by being visible, by being “a trans person out there that isn’t monstrous and isn’t threatening and is just a normal person like we all are. The more that people like me can be seen, the harder it is to sustain the myths that are driving a lot of this hate and fear,” she told reporters.
She also advised trans youth across the country, “Hang in there.”
As for her upcoming appearance on “Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions,” she said her episodes will air in November.