Just before I turned 12, a new sitcom aired on TV, Three’s Company. The plot was pretty simple: facing the high costs of Santa Monica rents, a guy named Jack Tripper moves into an apartment with two female roommates. But the old-fashioned landlord didn’t approve of men and women living together, for fear of hanky-panky happening. To alleviate any concerns, and thus get to live in the apartment, Jack pretends he’s gay.

There was something very appealing about that show, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. For some reason, I found the character of Jack very relatable.

Even though the first Pride celebration had happened seven years before this sitcom aired, a character like Jack Tripper served as an inspiration for budding queers across the country. We weren’t seeing bankers, military vets, teachers, or LGBTQ+ parents marching as they were in the streets of big cities like San Francisco and New York. We experienced invisibility.

Sure, privately, we read between the lines. A neighbor might have a son living in Chicago with a long-term “roommate.” A family friend’s daughter traveled extensively, always in the company of the same female companion. Questions about whom they were dating or when they were going to settle down and start a family, asked with a faux level of ignorance by bitchy people, were batted away by uncomfortable parents.

There was no gay pride in Middle America because there was nothing for which to be proud.

But on television, there was Three’s Company and its main character, Jack Tripper. In a time well before Heartstopper or Heated Rivalry won well-deserved accolades for their positive depictions of queer men, a popular ABC sitcom was discreetly telling us all to be proud.

The crazy reality is that the character of Jack wasn’t even gay. He was a raving heterosexual, always looking for a girl. He was forced to pretend to be gay to protect himself. It was a very subtle reversal for gay men and lesbian women who had spent their lives hiding out as straight.

Of course, whenever Jack acted “gay,” he camped it up by fluttering his eyelids, smiling coyly, and exaggerating his hand gestures. In any other situation, it would have been seen as an offensive stereotype, but therein lies the brilliance. He only acted that way when dealing with the landlord – first Mr. Roper, then Mr. Furley. This feigned behavior wasn’t reality; it’s how the antagonists perceived gay people. The joke was on them. There wasn’t anything wrong with being gay; there was something wrong with being bigoted and narrow-minded. Viewers weren’t laughing at the gay guy; they were laughing at the homophobes.

That message was planted in the psyche of tens of thousands of young queer viewers around the country. We didn’t have anything to be ashamed of; they did. And an absence of shame is the first step to being proud. Being proud in who you are, proud of whom you love, proud of the family you make. Without saying it, the message was loud and clear: be whomever you’re supposed to be, out and happy and proud – as a queer person, as someone’s child, as a parent.

Today, that message is more important than ever. Increasingly, the LGBTQ+ community is under attack. Our legal rights are being threatened. Alarmingly, hate crimes– especially against trans people – are on the rise. Somehow, it’s OK to be homophobic again.

So, this Pride season, remember the lessons learned from a long-gone sitcom character pretending to be gay: You’re not the problem, you never were. Stand up and be proud!

Happy Pride, everyone.