Larissa Kelly congratulates Amy Schneider for beating her Jeopardy record for highest-earning woman

Congratulations are in order for history-making Jeopardy contestant Amy Schneider, from one high-earning woman to another.

On Christmas Eve, Schneider buzzed her way to victory yet again, bringing her total earnings to $706,800 and and catapulting her past writer and academic Larissa Kelly, who took to Twitter to praise Schneider for her victory.

"Well, it was fun to hold a Jeopardy record for a few years... but it's been even more fun to watch @Jeopardamy set new standards for excellence, on the show and off," Kelly wrote on Friday after Schenider clinched yet another victory. "Congratulations to Amy on becoming the woman with the highest overall earnings in the show's history!"

Kelly held the previous record of the highest-earning woman contestant on Jeopardy with a total of $655,930, which she achieved through regular season plays and tournament appearances.

In response, Schneider wrote: "Thanks so much. I'm honored to be in your company, and I look forward to some day watching the woman who beats us both!"

Schneider's history-making run started a few weeks ago, when the California-based engineering manager set a Jeopardy record as the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for the show's special "Tournament of Champions". (She's not the first transgender contestant to become a champion, she's the first to make it to the highest level of the game as a champion.)

Leading up to the holidays, Schneider continued her reign as champion, earning the fourth-highest winnings in regular-season play following Matt Amodio ($1,518,601), James Holzhauer ($2,462,216), and Ken Jennings ($2,520,700).

During Monday night's show, Schneider buzzed her way to her 19th consecutive victory, bringing her total earnings to $745,200. If she continues her domination through the New Year, it means she'll hit a 21-game winning streak and join Amodio, Holzhauer, and Jennings in the top four rankings.

"I'm not going to pretend I didn't think I could do good, but this has just been so much better than I thought I would do," Schneider told Jeopardy's Jimmy McGuire in a Winner's Circle interview after qualifying for the Tournament of Champions, going on to talk about how trans San Francisco comedian Natasha Muse helped her embrace her own trans identity.

"I had gotten kind of a distorted idea of what it meant to be trans. So seeing her being smart and funny and cool and just a normal person with a normal life and kids and everything like that just showed me that it was something that I could possibly be, and that really made a difference for me," she said.

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