ABCNews.go.com – By McCarton Ackerman
Lucas Silveira has always been different.
Growing up as Lillia Silveira, she always felt as though she were a man trapped in a woman’s body. Now, as the lead singer for rock band the Cliks, Lucas Silveira is one of the first transgender artists to sign with a high-profile record label.
Although born in Canada, Lucas Silveira spent much of his childhood in the Azores Islands of Portugal. The village she lived in as Lillia Silveira not only had a population of 600 but was also conservative and Roman Catholic. The idea of being transgender was inconceivable.
“It was a very patriarchal society,” said Silveira. “Women conformed to certain roles, and so did the men.”