If you’re sapphic and online, chances are you’ve heard of the internet famous “Lesbian Masterdoc.” Its reputation precedes it so much that even Reneé Rapp, star of the 2024 Mean Girls musical adaptation, has the popular PDF on her mind six years after it was originally published.
But for those who aren’t as familiar with queer internet lore or sapphic Tumblr, let’s dive into the history of this 30-page document. Now dubbed by readers as “The Lesbian Masterdoc,” this piece of queer internet canon is essentially a guide for women questioning their sexuality. With sections like “What is compulsory heterosexuality?” and “How do I know I’m a lesbian?”, the document is designed to help sapphics navigate questions that come up in the early stages of understanding one’s queerness.
The Masterdoc proved so helpful that it quickly spread to all corners of the internet. Posted in 2018, it has since garnered a cult following on the sapphic internet and helped countless queer people come to terms with their sexualities, including singer Kehlani. If you want to delve into the doc’s brief but impactful history, read on.
So, what is the Lesbian Masterdoc?
To put it simply, the Lesbian Masterdoc is a guide that tries to help people answer the question: Am I a lesbian? Originally a Google Doc posted to Tumblr by user Cyberlesbian in 2018, the document has since been republished to many platforms as a PDF that continues to circle the internet. Within its 30 pages, the Masterdoc outlines an admittedly messy and unscientific flow chart of sorts for questioning sapphics.
One of the most commonly cited and anecdotally helpful takeaways from the doc was its section on compulsory heterosexuality — the idea that being straight is the only option. The document asserts that because “comphet” is a dominant force in society, many queer women may have experiences that go against stereotypical expectations for lesbians. In sections calling into question the difference between attraction to men and compulsory heterosexuality, the masterdoc points out that many queer women have crushes, date, and sleep with men before coming out because that’s what society expects of them.
“I’d like to assure you that even though you currently have a boyfriend, a husband, or had one in the past, that this does not make you any less of a lesbian,” the document reads. “If you’ve had sex with men, you’re not any less of a lesbian.”
Who made the Lesbian Masterdoc?
While her identity wasn’t known beyond her handle for years after creating the Lesbian Masterdoc, Tumblr user Anjeli Lux published it when she was coming to terms with her sexuality in high school. She created the doc over the course of two days as a way to parse out if her attraction to men was real or fabricated by societal pressures. The link to the original Google Doc is broken, but you can still look back at the Tumblr post here.
“I started researching compulsory heterosexuality and found that many lesbians had the same experiences I did,” Lux told Vice in 2020. “I created the document as a tool of self-reflection for myself and others.”
How did it become queer canon?
The Lesbian Masterdoc has become part of the online queer canon in less than a decade, with over 20 million views on TikTok for #LesbianMasterdoc and more than 30,000 notes on Tumblr. But what about it makes the doc resonate with so many people?
Because the Lesbain Masterdoc uses lived experience rather than theory to explain compulsory heterosexuality, it's comprehensible to young queers and people who have never had access to queer terminology. Many, including Kehlani, have anecdotally credited it with helping them understand how comphet was actually leading them to date men, not attraction. Whether you’re a nonbinary lesbian like Kehlani, a trans lesbian, a lesbian who has dated men, or a lesbian who currently is in a relationship with a man, the document asserts that you’re valid.
“I read the fuck out of this Google Doc and was like, when I had to list and analyze why I was still dating men, none of it had to do with being in love,” Kehlani said in a 2023 interview on Logan Paul’s podcast, IMPAULSIVE. “None of it had to do with these feelings that I'm supposed to feel — love and care and deep emotion.”
While no single document or quiz can truly tell you if you’re queer, the masterdoc speaks to a simple truth: nobody is born fully knowing their own sexuality. Its 20 sections continue to resonate with lesbians and queer women across the world wide web, making it an important and unique part of queer internet history.
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