diff --git a/quartz/plugins/transformers/citations.ts b/quartz/plugins/transformers/citations.ts
index 5bbc736d6..60f01f39d 100644
--- a/quartz/plugins/transformers/citations.ts
+++ b/quartz/plugins/transformers/citations.ts
@@ -30,11 +30,7 @@ export const Citations: QuartzTransformerPlugin<Partial<Options>> = (userOpts) =
       // thus, we optimistically assume there is indeed an appropriate
       // locale available and simply create the lang url-string
       let lang: string = "en-US"
-      if (
-        ctx.cfg.configuration.locale !== null &&
-        ctx.cfg.configuration.locale !== undefined &&
-        ctx.cfg.configuration.locale !== "en-US"
-      ) {
+      if (ctx.cfg.configuration.locale !== "en-US") {
         lang =
           "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citation-style-language/locales/refs/heads/master/locales-" +
           ctx.cfg.configuration.locale +