diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 472a9d63..87704ca9 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # roxygen2 (development version)
 
+* The automatic usage for a data object that is conditional on the `LazyData` option in the `DESCRIPTION` (see below) now correctly detects all ways to specify a true value, e.g. also `yes`, `Yes` or `True` (@jranke, #1881).
+
 # roxygen2 8.0.0
 
 * roxygen2 now requires R 4.1 (#1632) and no longer depends on purrr, stringr, or stringi. As a result, no package in the devtools constellation depends on stringr, which means you no longer need stringi, making it a bit easier to install in constrained Linux environments.
diff --git a/R/options.R b/R/options.R
index d305dd4a..27a9a643 100644
--- a/R/options.R
+++ b/R/options.R
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ load_options_roxygen <- function(base_path = ".") {
 
   opts$current_package <- dcf[[1, 2]]
   opts$current_package_dir <- normalizePath(base_path)
-  opts$lazy_data <- identical(dcf[[1, 3]], "true")
+  opts$lazy_data <- tolower(dcf[[1, 3]]) %in% c("true", "yes")
   opts
 }