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Since 1953, nations and individuals have been exercising colonial power over Mount Everest, the Sherpa Indigenous communities, and Nepal itself in pursuit of what many perceive as a great accomplishment of physical fitness and mental fortitude. Under the framework of colonial control set by the British through their administrative and representational control of the region, today’s climbers, touring companies, and the government of Nepal all play a role in the exploitation of the lives and labor of Indigenous Sherpa communities as a result of economic depression and cultural othering.

Further exacerbating these economic, cultural, and colonial pressures, our changing climate is already affecting the weather patterns on Mount Everest, with some even claiming that warmer weather caused the deadly 2014 Khumbu Avalanche (Myers). More broadly, the impacts of climate change and the impacts of the cultural, economic, and colonial pressures could form a feedback loop with Sherpa Indigenous communities at the center paying for our hubris with their lives.

The UN Human Rights Experts argue that climate change more heavily impacts countries that have historically been colonized yet it was their colonizers that produced much of the greenhouse gasses (Achiume). In addition, the Nepalese government is less prepared to respond to climate change due to “histories of colonial domination, and by externally imposed neoliberal and other economic policies in the postcolonial era” (Achiume). The lives and livelihood of Sherpa communities would be directly imperiled by the shortening of the Everest climbing season due to warmer temperatures and by the higher frequency of catastrophic avalanches and storms but also by the loss of income if tourists stopped visiting Nepal and the Everest region. Climate change has the potential to further stress the framework of exploitation to even further hinder Sherpa socioeconomic mobility and land sovereignty. Studying how the Sherpa communities are already being affected and what climate justice would look like for this region could serve as a model  of climate reparations that other regions, governments, and communities could also employ.

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In a two-part episode of the Strangers podcast, Sequoia Schmidt tells the story of how her relationship with her mountaineering father changed after he died because she began to participate in an extreme sport just like he did. In the second part of the podcast, Sequoia describes her father's mountaineering philosophy: summiting a mountain is the climbers way of becoming one with the mountain rather than a way of conquering the mountain (Thau). Sequoia's father, Marty Schmidt, made his living leading international mountaineering tours, a profession that usually involves encroaching on Indigenous homelands and religious sites for recreation, including Mount Everest (Thau). In this post-colonial time period, there has been much discussion about the tension between recreational adventure tourism and Indigenous sovereignty.

Due to its notoriety as the highest mountain in the world and its sacredness to many people in South Asia, Mount Everest is an opportune case study to start with when delving into colonial influence on Indigenous communities past, present, and future. To move forward, there has to be further discussion about the role that adventure tourism plays in impacting Indigenous lives and sovereignty with Mount Everest as a starting point. Since 1953, Indigenous Nepalese communities around Mount Everest, such as the Sherpas, have been impacted by the adventure tourism industry. Understanding the history of colonialism in the region can inform us about how the Everest region, its traditional inhabitants, and their cultures are being devalued in the tourism industry today. It can be argued that as a result of the looming colonial history of adventure tourism in Nepal, Sherpa communities are negatively affected through the exploitation of their lives and labor.

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At the age of 18, Caster Semenya competed in her first IAAF World Championships, where she became the 2009 female champion in the 800-meter race. Semenya’s victory by more than two seconds over the next finisher produced more than mere respect from her competitors and viewers; she was faced with criticism and speculation about whether or not she was really a woman (Longman, 2016). Competitors used her “masculine” features to question the validity of her victory. Since then, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the world governing body of track and field, has created multiple regulations that limit the levels of testosterone in athletes who compete in female competitions. How can it be that exceptional athletes can be excluded from competition because of the way they were born?

Many have astutely pointed out that there are a variety of physical and environmental advantages that allow athletes to have such exceptional abilities (Longman, 2016; Longman, 2018; Pūras, Melzer, & Radačić, 2018; Padawer, 2016). Athletes with genetic mutations that cause significantly increased blood hemoglobin levels compete without restriction from sports officials (Longman, 2018). Athletes whose families have poured fortunes into their coaching and training compete alongside those who may not have had the privilege of being able to devote hours a day to training in sports (Karkazis & Jordan-Young, 2018). An equal playing field that the eliminates advantages athletes have over one another is not only impossible to achieve (Longman, 2018), but it would cause competition to lose its meaning. Ironically, the IAAF fixates itself on testosterone regulations in the name of fairness instead of focusing on more pressing issues that actually threaten the integrity of competition, like doping.

International sporting events attempt to provide an equal playing field for athletes of all backgrounds to come together and compete. In many ways, running is one of the sports that comes closest to this mission. It does not require expensive equipment, like gymnastics or fencing, and it is not specific to a single culture, like baseball or skiing. Despite the great diversity of professional track athletes, IAAF leaders—and specifically those who the IAAF has shared to be behind its testosterone regulations—unsurprisingly are all white men. Their testosterone regulations make no mention of race and instead hide behind the supposedly indisputable science. In reality, IAAF leaders use regulations to reinforce a Western definition of femininity that is characterized by whiteness, weakness, and submission to men.

The IAAF’s fixation on implementing a testosterone limit may reflect a fear that strong, gender variant, black and brown bodies will redefine what is female, thus challenging the long-term power of white men. These regulations result in harmful and invasive medical practices towards black and brown athletes. This subtly perpetuates the neocolonial practice of administering harm to people from the Global South in the name of care for those targeted and justice for all.

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Looking to the Future for Semenya and Testosterone Regulations

Caster Semenya has become the face of the issue of testosterone because she is the most prominent and celebrated athlete affected by the regulation. Despite this, Semenya has avoided publicly discussing the issue. Following the 2017 IAAF World Championships, she was asked in a press conference about how a new IAAF regulation would affect her future. At the time, the first regulation was still under the CAS’s suspension, and the most recent regulation had not yet been released. She responded,

"Those are the things, issues I don’t focus on. It’s none of    my business. It’s their business. So, my business is to train hard and to see what I can come up with in competition. … I’m not even bothered, if I may say. I’m a kind of a person who doesn’t really focus on negativity. I’m a positive person, and I look at things in a positive way. … I do not work for IAAF. I’m Caster Semenya, I’m an athlete" (Nuffin’ Long Athletics, 2017, 13:16).

Although some may see the debate over testosterone to be completely her business, Semenya has continually expressed her desire to simply be allowed to focus on being an athlete. For years, the issue has captivated the IAAF, Semenya’s competitors and fans, queer scholars, medical specialists, and internet trolls. The only person who seemed missing from the conversation is Semenya herself.

Semenya was forced to change her strategy after the IAAF’s release of its 2018 regulation. In defining “Restricted Events” as races that conveniently happen to be the exact range that Semenya runs, this regulation seems to target Semenya directly. Because it threatens to ban her from meaningful competition almost completely, Semenya has had no choice but to fight the regulation. She has turned to the CAS to challenge whether the regulation is legal (Walton, 2018). Although the regulation was supposed to take effect November 1 of this year, the IAAF has agreed to delay this implementation for five months. In return, Semenya and the CAS have agreed to not prolong the proceedings (Eyewitness News, 2018). It’s unclear what the outcome of the coming events will be, but if all goes according to plan, it is possible that the debate over testosterone will come to a conclusive end in March of 2019.

Although every piece of discussion about Semenya’s “case” further sensationalizes and often medicalizes her career and life (Macharia, 2009; Hoad, 2010), Semenya has also received strong support and recognition from notable names in the athletic community. She was sponsored by Nike, who created a touching promotional video that celebrates her strength, speed, and well-deserved success (Nike, 2018). In the video, Semenya asks if it would be “easier” and “simpler” if she were not so successful and therefore a more convenient athlete for Western gender norms. In the end, she concludes “That’s too bad because I was born to do this” (Nike, 00:58). In September, fellow Nike sponsored athlete LeBron James flew to Berlin to support Semenya in a race (ESPN, 2018). In October, Semenya won the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award from the Women’s Sports Foundation and Billie Jean King (CCTV Africa, 2018). In December, she was featured on the cover of Forbes Woman Africa (ForbesWomanAfri, 2018).

This support for Semenya shows that many around the world have a definition of womanhood that is very different from Stéphane Bermon’s. When discussing her CAS challenge of the 2018 regulation, Semenya has commented “This is not about me. I’ve achieved everything I want in life—I’m world champion, Commonwealth champion, African Champion” (Walton, 2018, paragraph 3). Instead, she challenges the regulation for the “next generation. It’s killing them” (Walton, para. 4). From the college level to middle school sports leagues, many athletics organizations developing the next generation of professional athletes have recently tackled questions of inclusion of athletes who do not fit the gender binary (ABC News, 2018; Cobb, personal communication, 2018). While a CAS ruling in Semenya’s favor could pave the way for inclusive regulations on many levels of athletics, no matter what happens in March 2019, Semenya has already successfully weakened the traditional definition of femininity. Her strength, speed, blackness, and success serve as a counterexample that invalidates the definition of womanhood held by men like Bermon. As more and more gender variant people of color rise to cultural prominence and power, a new, inclusive definition of womanhood will eventually replace the narrow Western gender binary. Maybe if this shift can one day permeate the IAAF and other governing organizations, regulations affecting the bodies of women and gender minorities from the Global South will be made by people who arguably have more expertise than any medical specialist: women of color themselves.