These works have banked on the characters' transgendered experience to draw audiences. However, The Clicks' work is more vague. They deliver the standard rock fare of emotional songs that express trials that are not transgendered so much as they are human.

"I think that authenticity is reflected in their particular single and I can only theorize that is why it has caught on," says Brian Graden, president of Logo and of entertainment at MTV Networks Music Group. "I don't think it's because of any hook of being transgendered." Graden adds that being transgendered is "one of the last frontiers of non-understanding in our culture.

" But of late, more people "exploring that subject refused to be coded or denied." Born in Toronto as Lillia, Silveira spent much of his childhood on the small Portuguese island Pico. He moved back to Toronto's suburbs when he was ten, thriving on pop and then heavy metal.

With paper route funds he bought an electric guitar. Struggling with male inclinations, Silveira entered what he dubs his "uber feminine" phase, donning heels, nylons and skirts in an attempt to fit in. By his early twenties he was a singer/songwriter, doing open mics and solo acoustic gigs and identifying as a lesbian.

Back in Toronto, he named his band Lillia and supported his art with government grants and dog walking. Then two years ago, a six-year relationship ended, Silveira's grandmother died, his father had a stroke and a friend was rediagnosed with cancer. Then, his bandmembers quit.

"I fell apart and I started looking in," remembers Silveira. And what he found was his true gender identity. "It started coming in dreams and one day I just woke up horrified because I just saw the answer.

I had known since I was a kid, but sometimes when the truth is there it's too scary to deal with and you suppress it. I was like, 'Oh my god, it's sink or swim.