From Joseph R. Wolin’s article for Public Journal:
Nearly fifty years later, Lissa Rivera began to shoot BJ Lillis, who soon became her romantic partner and primary muse. Willowy, with flowing blond locks and an aquiline profile, Lillis cuts an androgynous figure, and Rivera pictures him in various period interiors wearing vintage women’s clothing—peignoirs and negligees, panties and girdles, caftans and gauzy gowns. She significantly others her significant other, who describes himself as “genderqueer,” a neologism that seems to encompass anything falling outside of a traditional, conservative gender binary, and says he long felt more comfortable in dresses. The extended series of photographs, collectively titled “Beautiful Boy,” depicts Lillis performing a host of feminine personae, from maiden to matron, and often as a kind of odalisque, sitting or lounging in various states of undress. He looks into the camera or appears lost in private reverie.