Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to cement its ban on biological males competing in women’s sports in a letter on Monday.

The IOC is set to enact a new policy that will prohibit transgender female athletes from competing against biological women, according to multiple reports. The policy is reportedly set to cover those with differences of sex development (DSD).

“Reports indicate the working group is moving towards a complete ban on biological males competing in female events, but that decision is not yet confirmed,” Cornyn wrote in a letter to IOC president Kirsty Coventry. “I urge the IOC to move swiftly toward a clear and decisive policy that protects fair and safe competition for women and prohibits biological males from competing in female categories.”

Cornyn underscored the need for resolution to ensure the integrity of women’s sports with the 2026 Winter Olympics approaching and the 2028 Summer Olympics around the corner.

“With the Winter Games rapidly approaching in February and preparation well underway for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, timely action is essential,” Cornyn added. “As the IOC continues its deliberations, this issue has become a global policy concern and a question of athletic integrity.

NFL’S FIRST TRANSGENDER CHEERLEADER MAKES CLAIM ABOUT PANTHERS DEPARTURE: ‘I WAS CUT BECAUSE I’M TRANS’

“In the United States, President Trump honored his unwavering commitment to women and girls with the issuance of Executive Order 1420: Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports. His action reaffirmed the longstanding belief that women’s sports must be preserved for biological females.

“I applaud your commitment to addressing this issue and respectfully urge the International Olympic Committee to finalize the ban on biological males competing in female sports, without delay. Thank you for your attention and dedication to protecting women’s athletics.”

The new policy is reportedly expected to be announced in February just ahead of the Winter Olympics.

Coventry called for “protecting” the women’s category in June and there was “overwhelming support” from IOC members to do the same.

“We understand that there’ll be differences depending on the sport … but it was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost to ensure fairness,” Coventry said at the time.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“But we need to do that with a scientific approach and the inclusion of the international federations who have already done a lot of work in this area.”

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

The family of a Texas college freshman has filed a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from allegations that fraternity hazing drove him into a mental health crisis that led him to take his own life.

Sawyer Updike, an 18-year-old from Pearland, accepted a bid to pledge the Sigma Chi fraternity through the University of Texas at Austin’s Alpha Nu Chapter in August 2023, according to FOX 7. 

Throughout his time as a member of the chapter’s pledge class, Updike was allegedly subjected to months of “horrific hazing” that ultimately drove him to suicide, the lawsuit states. 

“This was just an outstanding young man,” Ted Lyon, an attorney representing Updike’s family, told Fox News Digital. “He scored 1410 on the SATs. He was a straight A student in high school.”

FRATERNITY HAZING DEATHS HAPPEN TO ‘GOOD KIDS FROM GOOD FAMILIES,’ VICTIM’S FATHER WARNS AMID RUSH SEASON

The 6-foot-6 freshman had just made the school’s skeet shooting team and “had the whole world ahead of him,” according to Lyon. 

The alleged hazing took place at the Alpha Nu fraternity house in Austin, Lyon said.

“The culture that uses this type of, I call it depraved activity, is not the kind of culture that any major university ought to condone,” Lyon told Fox News Digital.

OHIO HS FACES FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAWSUIT OVER HAZING, SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS FROM FORMER FOOTBALL PLAYER

According to the lawsuit, Updike was allegedly subjected to various methods of brutal hazing by members of the fraternity. The acts reportedly consisted of spearing a large fishhook through Updike’s leg, puncturing his hip with a staple gun and pressuring him through fear of punishment to ingest illegal substances, such as cocaine, according to FOX 7. 

Additionally, the lawsuit alleges members of the fraternity forced Updike to consume harmful amounts of alcohol, repeatedly burned him with lit cigarettes, and subjected the freshman to physical whippings and beatings, the outlet reported. 

“We have a picture of the kid that stapled them before he did it,” Bill Johnston, an attorney representing the family, told FOX 7. “I mean, again, they were in some sick way, they were proud of it. They were proud enough to record it.”

FRAT HOUSE WHERE STUDENT WAS ELECTROCUTED IN ALLEGED HAZING HAD LAUNDRY LIST OF KNOWN RED FLAGS: REPORT

The psychological damage from the alleged hazing was noticeable to Updike’s parents when he returned home for holiday break in 2023, according to Lyon. 

“When he came home at Christmas, his mother and father knew something was wrong,” Lyon told Fox News Digital. “He weighed 192 pounds and looked emaciated, but they didn’t really know what it was. They didn’t know that he was being serially hazed and abused.”

The lawsuit reportedly states that Updike’s mental state was already deteriorating when he was provided with cocaine and psilocybin mushrooms on Jan. 16, 2024, the first day of the second semester of Updike’s freshman year, according to FOX 7.

FRATERNITY SUSPENDED AFTER POSSIBLE HAZING LEAVES UNIVERSITY STUDENT IN CRITICAL CONDITION: REPORT

Shortly after he was allegedly provided drugs, Updike drove to a local gas station parking lot and took his own life. 

“He committed suicide in January 2024 and, of course, the parents wondered why,” Johnston said. “The mother was able to access his phone, talk to some people, and learn that he had been subjected to extreme hazing.” 

While it does not appear Updike personally reported the instances of alleged hazing, at least one complaint regarding the fraternity was lodged with UT that fall semester, FOX 7 reported.

DEADLY WAKE-UP CALL: ALLEGED FRAT HAZING ELECTROCUTION HIGHLIGHTS STUDENT DANGERS IN OFF-CAMPUS HOMES

Following Updike’s death, the university decided to close the Sigma Chi chapter, which had already been placed on deferred suspension due to a separate alleged hazing incident from the previous year, according to FOX 7. Hazing is illegal under Texas law and prohibited by university policy. 

“There’s something wrong frankly with someone that would think this is a rite of passage that can be applied to another young person,” Johnston said, FOX 7 reported. 

The wrongful death lawsuit names Sigma Chi International Fraternity, Alpha Nu Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity at the University of Texas at Austin, the Alpha Nu House Corporation and five fraternity members, according to FOX 7. 

“UT Austin is committed to providing a safe educational environment for everyone and does not tolerate hazing by any group or individual affiliated with the University,” the University of Texas at Austin said in a statement to FOX 7. “All such allegations receive the utmost attention and thorough investigation.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The National Sigma Chi Chapter and UT Austin did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

“I live every day with the weight of his absence,” Sawyer’s mother, Sheryl Roberts-Updike, said in a news release, according to FOX 7. “No parent should ever lose a child, and certainly not because of hazing disguised as ‘brotherhood.’ What happened to Sawyer was cruel, senseless, and preventable. It is unbearable to know that a young man with so much promise was put through something so dangerous in the name of belonging.”

The Department of Justice threw its support behind Texas on Monday, arguing the new map the state’s Republican-led legislature approved was not an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Solicitor General John Sauer, who represents the Trump administration, wrote in an amicus brief that a lower court’s decision to block the map through the 2026 midterms was wrong and that the Supreme Court should intervene and reverse the decision.

“This is not a close case,” Sauer wrote.

TEXAS FILES EMERGENCY SUPREME COURT PETITION AFTER TRUMP-BACKED CONGRESSIONAL MAP BLOCKED BY FEDERAL JUDGES

Sauer said the lower court misunderstood what drove the Texas legislature to shift five districts in favor of Republicans. He said the move was not based on race, which could violate federal voting laws and the Constitution.

“There is overwhelming evidence — both direct and circumstantial — of partisan objectives, and any inference that the State inexplicably chose to use racial means is implausible,” Sauer wrote.

Sauer also defended a letter Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon wrote to Texas this year demanding that it address “coalition districts” that favor Democrats, which the challengers to the map have seized on as evidence of race-based motives. Days after the letter, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, added redistricting to the legislature’s agenda, leading to a stunning boycott in which state Democrats temporarily fled the state.

The lower court “misinterpreted the letter’s meaning; and more importantly, the court misunderstood the letter’s significance to the legislature’s adoption of the 2025 map,” Sauer said.

The plaintiffs in the case, who include numerous voting and immigrant rights groups, argued that Dhillon’s letter demanded dismantling the coalition districts and packing Black and Latino voters into other districts.

“The DOJ letter, riddled with legal and factual errors, incorrectly asserted that these districts were ‘unconstitutional coalition districts’ that Texas was required to ‘rectify’ by changing their racial makeup,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote.

REAGAN-APPOINTED JUDGE TORCHES COLLEAGUES IN TEXAS MAP FIGHT

Texas’ mid-cycle redistricting dispute is one of several that have cropped up across the country as President Donald Trump stares down the possibility of losing an acquiescent Republican-led House in 2026. California voted in favor of an eleventh-hour ballot measure that would cancel out the five Republican gains in Texas. Utah’s map has changed in favor of Democrats, Virginia has taken steps to redraw its map and Louisiana’s is pending before the Supreme Court.

The DOJ recently sued Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, over California’s redistricting efforts, arguing that unlike in Texas, those were unconstitutionally race-based.

Texas has asked the Supreme Court to pause the three-judge panel’s ruling in the Western District of Texas that found 2-1 last week that race was too much of a factor in its redraw. 

“This summer, the Texas Legislature did what legislatures do: politics,” Texas’ attorneys argued in their request, disputing all notions that the redistricting process used race as a factor.

In a lengthy and wild tirade, Judge Jerry Brown, a Reagan appointee and the lone dissenter, called the three-judge panel’s decision the “most blatant exercise of judicial activism” he had ever seen and a work of “fiction.”

Justice Samuel Alito has administratively paused the panel’s ruling, but the Supreme Court could now make a more lasting decision on the map at any time. Texas lawyers have also argued the high court should block the panel’s decision because it interfered with the 2026 midterms, for which candidates were already filing to run based on the new map.