Johnathan Gooch did a lot of wishful thinking throughout this legislative session. Most recently, he’s been wishing for soundproof walls. 

“The worst thing about being queer in Texas right now is having neighbors, because I just want to scream all the time,” said Gooch, the communications director for Equality Texas, an LGBTQ+ rights advocacy group.  

This session, the group identified and tracked over 200 anti-LGTBQ+ bills, more than any other state in any point in history, Gooch said. A dozen of those bills were ultimately passed by the Legislature and have made it to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk or already been signed into law. Those various bills could threaten to negatively impact queer Texans with restrictions targeting public schools and healthcare and new legal standards that could create unsafe environments for LGBTQ+ people, particularly children. 

Though the deluge of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation isn’t anything new (in 2023, legislators filed 160 such bills), Gooch said that this session, the bills that gained the most traction tended to seem less overtly harmful. “[The harmful provisions are] sometimes buried in other bills or deal with complicated policy areas that might not be immediately evident to queer people or allies across the state who are concerned about what’s going on,” Gooch said. 

One such bill is Senate Bill 1257, which will require insurance providers to cover any adverse consequences relating to gender-affirming healthcare, including procedures to reverse or recover from a gender transition. These procedures are uncommon: According to a 2021 study, about 1 percent of trans people regret gender-affirming surgeries. The bill may cause risk-averse health insurers to stop covering gender-affirming healthcare, Gooch said, making it more difficult for adults to access or afford. Abbott signed SB 1257 into law on May 24 and it will go into effect on September 1. This bill follows the state’s 2023 ban on gender-affirming care for minors. 

Other bills, like House Bill 1106, enact seemingly innocuous changes in legal language that could have devastating impacts. HB 1106 amends the Texas family code’s definition of child abuse to explicitly exclude a parent who refuses to affirm a child’s gender identify or sexual orientation. “This exception, unfortunately, could enable a lot of harmful behavior,” Gooch said. “There’s a long history of using a variety of violent, physically abusive tactics to ‘reform’ young queer people. … If a parent is so aggressively opposed to their child’s orientation or gender identity … where is the limit? What are they allowed to do to force them not to be queer?”

Senate Bill 412, which the governor signed on May 19, similarly tweaks language, removing a legal protection that previously exempted parents, teachers, and librarians from prosecution for providing kids with material that could be considered “harmful” if it was done with an educational intent. 

Emily Witt, a communications strategist for the Texas Freedom Network, said bills that put more power in the hands of parents are part of a larger project of “weaponizing parental rights.”

“Parents love their kids and want what’s best for their kids, and if they’re being told that there is this harmful agenda, or that there is something wrong with their kid being trans or LGBTQ+ … I think that parents are a lot more likely to go along with that.” 

This weaponization extends into schools, particularly with Senate Bill 12 and Senate Bill 13, two of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s priority bills. Witt said going after public schools is the first way to change the overall mindset of a population. “It has to do with how foundational our schools are,” Witt said. “Making our public schools places where kids can’t be fully accepted or don’t feel like they can talk to their teachers or be who they are is just another piece of how Republicans are attacking our public education system and changing it from what it’s supposed to do, which is serve our kids.” 

Senate Bill 12, dubbed the “parental bill of rights,” would prohibit teachers from teaching LGBTQ+ topics and from helping students “socially transition” by using a name or pronouns that don’t align with their biological sex. The final version, which passed over the weekend, also clarifies that school districts may not authorize or sponsor clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity. It also allows parents to have access to their child’s mental health records, which Gooch of Equality Texas said could pose serious risks to queer children. 

“If a young queer person fears that their parents might not be affirming, they need an outlet to process that,” Gooch said. “Having access to counselors at school can be a lifeline to young queer people who are trying to make sense of how they fit in the world and also trying to maintain a healthy relationship with their parents.” 

SB 13 would allow parents to access student library records and prevent their children from checking out certain books. It would also establish procedures to remove books with “indecent or profane” content. According to PEN America, of the most commonly banned books in the 2023-2024 school year, 39 percent featured LGBTQ+ people and characters. SB 13 was approved by both chambers over the weekend. 

House Bill 229, one of several proposed bills seeking to classify people along binary definitions of biological sex, would codify the terms “male” and “female” and require government agencies to abide by these definitions in sex-based data collection. Witt said this bill could pose problems for trans Texans whose gender identity does not align with their biological sex and intersex Texans who do not fit into binary definitions of biological sex. “That’s just another way that we’re seeing lawmakers try to erase Texans and try to really attack freedoms,” Witt said. “They’re trying to control every aspect of trans and queer Texans’ lives. This kind of legislation really just feels like a way to push people out of the state and make them feel like they don’t belong here.” 

Senate Bill 1188 similarly relies on the idea of biological sex, requiring health agencies to create a new field in medical records for sex assigned at birth. It doesn’t, however, prohibit health agencies from including gender identity information. 

Still, the majority of anti-LGBTQ+ bills died during the legislative process, including Senate Bill 18, one of Patrick’s priorities, which made it to the House calendar but didn’t get a reading before the May 27 deadline. SB 18 would have prohibited public libraries from hosting “drag queen storytime” events, and Senate Bill 2920, which would have classified gender-affirming hormone treatment as prohibited steroid use for athletic competitions in the University Interscholastic League, met the same fate. 

Though not much about the session surprised Witt—she said the amount of anti-LGBTQ+ bills was to be expected—she said lawmakers seemed less interested in listening to the testimony of Texans during hearings. “I think they are aware that they’re wasting time attacking a small community instead of passing meaningful legislation that actually affects most Texans,” Witt said. “They just think that they’re in charge and they don’t have to listen to the public anymore, and I think that they’re going to see that that’s a big mistake when it comes election time.” 

Despite the onslaught of bad bills, Texans continued to show up, even at the end of the session: Witt said over 100 people came to a “read-in” protest of SB 13 over Memorial Day weekend. 

“This is a minority of people who are extremists and have been given millions of dollars to push forth this anti-trans legislation, but they don’t actually reflect Texas,” Witt said. “We still have so many people who are willing to show up for each other and keep each other safe, and I saw that throughout the entire session.” 

For the third time in four years, the Texas Longhorns will play for a national championship at the Women’s College World Series, finally taking on a new opponent, the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
The last two times the Longhorns were in the championship series, they’ve run into the Oklahoma Sooners dynasty that has won four straight national championships, with the Longhorns being defeated twice in that stretch, with series sweeps in both 2022 and 2024.

This time, the Longhorns will avoid the dynasty in the championship series, but for graduate Joley Mitchell, getting the chance to beat OU for their first national championship would have made the win a whole lot better.

“Personally, I wanted it to be OU,” said Mitchell in a media availability. “If you want to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man, so I’m happy regardless and I want to win this thing and I’m ready to go…wish it would’ve been OU but it’s not, so we just have to focus on what’s in front of us.”

Oklahoma Sooners head coach Patty Gasso has had a dominant hold on the softball world; her accolades read like a laundry list, with eight national championships, 16 conference Coach of the Year awards, appearing in every championship series since 2019, and since 2016, winning six out of their seven national championship appearances.

Putting an end to Oklahoma’s streak was first a loss to Texas in the second game of the WCWS, where Mitchell hit a dagger solo home run in the sixth inning, which moved the Sooners to the other side of the bracket, forcing them to come out of the losers’ bracket.

And after defeating the Oregon Ducks, the Sooners needed to win twice against the Texas Tech Red Raiders to reach the championship series. The Red Raiders delivered the final blow to Oklahoma, defeating them in the first game in walk-off fashion, 3-2.

Finally, the Texas Longhorns will avoid Oklahoma in the championship series, but are still facing a challenge with old Big 12 foe Texas Tech. Led by superstar ace junior Nijaree Canady, who on the season is 33-5 with a .90 ERA and 304 strikeouts, and has pitched the entirety of the WCWS for Tech.

Game one of the championship series begins on Wednesday, June 4, at 7 p.m. C.T. on ESPN

Patrick Corbin wasn’t on Texas Rangers fans’ radars until well into spring training in 2025, but he’s become a consistent piece on the rotation so far this season.

Corbin was brought to Texas to provide pitching depth in the starting rotation, and he has done just that, even with short notice.

Here are 10 things to know about Corbin.

1. The basics

Name: Patrick Alan Corbin

Born: July 19, 1989

Ht.: 6-4 Wt.: 225 lb

Hometown: Clay, New York

College: Chipola College

Draft: 2nd round, 2009 (Los Angeles Angels)

2. Late to the party in Texas

As mentioned above, Corbin signed with the Rangers on March 18, 2025 when Texas’ starting rotation was hit with significant injuries to Jon Gray and Cody Bradford during spring training.

Corbin was brought in to eat innings for a Rangers rotation that needed depth in a bad way. He had the 15th most innings in baseball over the previous four seasons, albeit with ugly numbers.

Through his first 10 starts with the Rangers, Corbin has been a pleasant surprise with a 3.71 ERA in 53 1/3 innings with 41 strikeouts and 18 walks. Even if he reverts to his previous struggles before coming to Texas, he has given the Rangers everything they could have asked for in his first couple of months with the team while Gray and Bradford are on the mend.

3. A historic win

Corbin was a part of the 2019 Nationals team that topped the Astros in the World Series.

He capped that season with as memorable a win as a major league pitcher could have, as he was the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series when the Nationals beat the Astros in Houston.

Corbin pitched three scoreless, two-hit innings in relief of Max Scherzer in that Game 7. He entered the game in the sixth inning with Washington down 2-0, but the Nationals had a 4-2 lead when he finished his scoreless eighth inning, which put him in line for the historic win

In that playoff run, which is the only year Corbin has pitched in the playoffs, he had a 5.79 ERA in 23 1/3 innings. He appeared in eight games and made three starts for Washington during those playoffs.

4. Injury history

Corbin was set to be the Diamondbacks’ opening day starter in 2014, but he felt arm tightness during a spring training start.

It was later recealed he has an injury to his ulnar collateral ligament and, like many pitchers in modern baseball, Corbin underwent Tommy John surgery and missed the whole 2014 season. He returned to Arizona’s rotation on July 4, 2015.

5. Late bloomer

He didn’t join his Cicero-North Syracuse High School baseball team until his junior year, according to a story in The New York Post. Corbin’s friends ultimately convinced him to try out.

“It was the second day of tryouts and he showed up in the stretch line in jeans,” his high school coach Kevin Rockwell said. “I asked if he was a righty or a lefty and if he could hit. He said he couldn’t hit, but he was a lefty and could throw hard, ‘But I have no idea where it’s going.’ ”

In his senior year, he had an 8-0 record and allowed just 33 hits and 16 runs in 47 innings. Corbin finished his career with a 14-0 record and 139 strikeouts.

6. Got paid

Corbin hit free agency following a 2018 All-Star campaign with the Diamondbacks and cashed in big-time.

The Nationals signed Corbin, who was 29 years old at the time, to a six-year, $140 million contract ahead of the 2019 season.

7. Two-time All-Star

Corbin made two All-Star teams in his career, both during his time with the Diamondbacks.

In 2013, he was named a National League All-Star when he entered the All-Star break with an 11-1 record and 2.35 ERA in 19 starts. Corbin finished the year with a 14-8 record and 3.41 ERA in 32 starts.

He made the NL All-Star team again in 2018 when he headed into the All-Star break with a 6-4 record and 3.24 ERA in 20 starts. Corbin finished the season with an 11-7 record and 3.15 ERA in 33 starts.

8. Unique college journey

His grades in high school weren’t good enough to get him into a four-year college to play baseball. He ended up at Mohawk Valley Community College, located in Utica, New York.

Corbin played baseball and basketball his freshman year at Mohawk Valley. The summer after his freshman year, he caught scouts’ attention during summer ball.

That led him to Chipola College, which has one of the top junior college programs in the country. Corbin quit basketball and focused solely on baseball at his new school.

After a standout year at Chipola, he had signed a letter of intent with the University of Southern Mississippi, but opted to sign his first professional contract when the Angels drafted him with the 80th overall pick in the 2009 MLB draft.

9. Basketball was his first love

He was cut from a basketball team in seventh grade, so he avoided trying out for his high school teams until his junior year.

Corbin was a basketball standout at Cicero and played both sports during his one year at Mohawk Valley.

“He was a basketball junkie,” Mohawk Valley head coach Dave Warren said. “He wanted to play for Jim Boeheim. I think the tide turned toward baseball when he got here.

“He had a great year for us even though he was focused on basketball. We started indoor baseball in February, so he would show up in his basketball shorts and throw a bullpen [session].”

10. Struggles in Washington

Although he was a part of a World Series championship team in Washington in his first year, he turned into one of the worst contracts in baseball for most of his time with the Nationals.

From 2021-2024, the final four years of Corbin’s deal with the Nationals were ugly for any pitcher, let alone a pitcher on a contract that averaged over $23 million per year.

Among the 58 pitchers with at least 500 innings in those four years, he ranked last in ERA (5.71), losses (63), hits allowed (820) and WHIP (1.532). In that same timeframe, he led the major leagues in losses three times, led in hits allowed twice, led in earned runs allowed three times and led in home runs allowed once.

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.