Welcome to the second Friday of October! Spooky season is is full swing!

It’s one thing to have spent the last several decades reading about the causes and consequences of climate change. But still having summer temperatures and wild fire alerts in mid-October just feels wrong.

Let’s move on to the Friday Five in which I bring you: the top five stories of the week you may not have seen because of everything else, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about haters & deplorables, and five stories and insurrectionists (plus notable obituaries).

Stories of the Week:

LGBTQ kid refuses to let ‘Moms for Liberty’ snatch liberty – Being conservative does not have to mean endorsing extremism or demonizing a 13-year-old with nothing but love in their heart

It’s Not About You: Beyond the Hero’s Journey

Black Hole Pukes Up Star Years After Eating It

A Young Man Became Allergic to Orgasms—but There’s a Happy Ending

How Iran’s protests transformed into a national uprising

Stories of Interest to Queers and Our Allies:

Top surgery: For trans teens, it can take a long time to get much-needed care

Before Stonewall LGBTQ people rose up at the Black Nite bar. It will soon be a historical landmark

Meet the woman who was jailed 3 times for bringing cannabis brownies to AIDS patients

‘I’m sick of being silent’: Gay teen catches bullies on camera in viral TikTok video

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Vermont station working to correct story of bullied trans teen. Family Research Council isn’t happy about that

This week in Haters and Other Deplorables:

On ’60 Minutes,’ Bart Barber revealed the cruelty of Southern Baptists

Alex Jones unlikely to escape ‘historically high’ defamation award, legal experts say – “He may be forced to live a subsistence type of life,” a New York attorney and former federal prosecutor said.

It’s just murder living in a red state – Republicans’ crime message ignores their own murder problem

Parkland Shooter sentenced to life in prison without parole

Supreme Court denies Trump appeal in Mar-a-Lago raid documents case

This Week in the Sedition and Insurrection:

Jan. 6 hearing takeaways: Jarring new footage, evidence Trump knew he lost

New footage shows congressional leadership at Fort McNair on January 6, scrambling to save the US Capitol

These Donald Trump allies are facing criminal referrals from the January 6th Select Committee

Trump isn’t the first president to be subpoenaed by Congress: Here are the others – Four past presidents received such demands

Members of Congress stunned by Secret Service ‘bombshell’ at Jan. 6 hearing

In Memoriam:

Angela Lansbury Dead: ‘Murder, She Wrote’ Star Was 96

Angela Lansbury, star of ‘Murder She Wrote,’ has died at 96

Let’s not forget what Angela Lansbury did during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic