This article presents an analysis of LGBTQ education history with an Ohio narrative to underscore a point: four decades into the publication of LGBTQ history it remains a critical enterprise--essential to a collective understanding of the past, vulnerable to those who do not approve of its subject(s), and undergoing significant change. The Ohio story helps establish a premise for this argument. As one traces the contours of LGBTQ history, one should not lose sight of what this history means to people--even in its most basic form. The author surveys existent lesbian and gay education history and marks significant questions in the field. She explains why these questions matter to the history of education more broadly, and highlights influential, relevant histories of sexuality and gender. In the course of the analysis the author explores the ways theory and history may necessarily intertwine in this scholarship. Since the study reflects current contours of the field, the parameters of the essay address same-sex loving and not necessarily nongender normative (trans) histories in education. (Contains 77 footnotes.)