Hello! Finally getting down and writing my first omegaverse fic, and was curious if you have any insight on alphas/omegas surgically transitioning to betas via the removal of pheremone glands. Do you think there would be certain age/growth milestones maximizing/limiting the effectiveness of this method of transitioning? (I.e., starting blockers prior to puberty to help the effectiveness of other HRT/gender affirming care). Hopefully this makes sense and thanks for your thoughts in advance! Your blog has been a godsend so far 🫶
hell yeah, welcome to the omegaverse writers club, and good luck on your first fic!
I want to preface this ask with the fact that I am not a biologist or a doctor. I'm also not trans myself and have never taken hrt. my understanding of the scientific concepts behind the fiction is surface level at most.
additionally, most fics never go into much detail when it comes to how anything work scientifically, considering it really doesn't matter to the plot of most stories. so, if an author does go into detail, it's probably because they're the kind of person who really loves thinking about the nitty gritty like that, and make up their own rules to fit their plot, so even more than usual, there really isn't an agreed upon canon for anyone to rely on - it's truly a free for all out there.
with that said, to actually answer your question, I haven't seen a transition to a beta through the removal of pheromone glands. it doesn't exactly seem like the best method because pheromones don't usually affect the body they're made in, they're a substance for communication. so if an omega is aroused, their body will produce and release a pheromone that signals to alphas in the area that they should also get aroused. in general, this is the mechanic that lets people in the omegaverse identify who is of which secondary gender by their scent, as well as all the communication of their feelings through scent.
if you were to remove them, it would absolutely alter other people's perception of the alpha or omega in question, they'd likely seem like a beta to them (though that only works in a verse where betas don't have scents. if they do, the objective would have to be to recreate beta pheromones/an authentic beta scent rather than just removing the alpha/omega pheromones). so it would be a great way to help someone pass as a beta, but it likely wouldn't remove things like knots or heats, which a trans beta might be uncomfortable with. though it might be the least invasive option if they don't care too much about what their body actually does and more about how it is perceived by other people.
now, secondary genders do come with their own hormones that are what triggers heats/ruts and play a part in what someone presents as. they don't have fun names they're just called alpha hormones and omega hormones. now, some stories again go the route of everyone has both just like irl everyone has both testosterone and estrogen, it's just alphas have more alpha hormones, omegas have more omega hormones, and betas have an even mix. in that case, even if you could locate and remove either alpha or omega hormones or both from one's body, it would probably just fuck them up in new and interesting ways, rather than turn them into a beta, and it would make much more sense to simply take small hormone doses of whichever you have less of to balance them out to achieve beta status. however, some stories do go the route of alphas have alpha hormones, omegas have omega hormones, and betas have neither, in which case, so long as you can locate and remove the production of these hormones, that would likely be a pretty effective way of turning into a beta.
now, for your question about timing, I think there's one question that's unavoidable, that can be answered either way but must be answered first before you can actually discuss anything:
do people know what they'll present as before they actually present?
this is really where the omegaverse differs from real life, because while trans and intersex people have always existed, generally, everyone got an assigned gender at birth for as long as humans have been human. what the people have done with this information varies wildly through time and space, but regardless, you can look at most babies and go "boy" or "girl", without really knowing or understanding anything, and without any tools other than your eyes. (you might not be correct and miss the ways in which the baby actually falls outside of these stringent categories, but that's not relevant. you can assign the gender at birth so people have been doing that.) but while you can still assign primary gender at birth in the omegaverse, secondary gender only presents itself during puberty.
now, logically speaking, it should be possible with modern medicine to figure out a child's secondary gender long before they actually present, likely even at birth. and yet, even modern settings often treat it as impossible or if not, illegal, to do that.
if you're going the route of it being genuinely impossible, that actually leaves you with the biggest argument that blocking hormones before presentation is way more effective than doing it after a teen presented as alpha or omega, because it would mean they'd never even grow something like knots, or possibly a whole uterus or dick in the cases of male omegas and female alphas respectively. once those exist, no amount of hrt would likely make them disappear, and you'd have to go for surgery. even for scents, you could say changing the hormones later might dull it, but once the gland is fully developed, again, it might never fully stop producing the scent on its own. but then, how do you know how you'd feel about any option when nobody knows before they present? why would you block something that might never naturally happen anyway and you might just be a beta regardless?
if you can tell, the consequences of waiting might be less severe - the uterus is probably already there, and so is the base of the knot, you just need to do an ultrasound or something to see them. if it's legal and possibly even common to get your kid tested and let them know what they'll be ahead of time, they might even have an okay chance of realizing that's wrong and convincing the people around them they're trans, and thus getting pre-emptive blockers to never let their secondary gender fully develop (especially in stories where betas never present this would be the ideal solution, it'd probably be a bit more complicated to achieve a proper beta presentation, though likely still easier if you hadn't ever presented as alpha or omega before). but if you can tell but it's illegal to check, not only would this make getting medical care a lot more difficult, it'd also come with a huge societal taboo around the topic - if presenting is someone reaching sexual maturity, determining a child's secondary gender before they present is to sexualize children! it robs them of their innocence! it gives the adult in their life too much power and opportunity to groom them based on their expected roles! and of course, if everyone is convinced you're not supposed to know what you'll be, then they'll be just as convinced that you can't choose, especially not before you have naturally learned what you are. maybe if you're too repulsed by it something can be done about it, but beforehand? everyone has a preference or is nervous about it, that's not a sign something medical needs to be done! or so the arguments would go.
I think that's about all I've got. feel free to disregard anything you don't like or doesn't fit your story, even if it's all of this.
personally, I very much lean more towards the side of just figuring out how I want a story to go and what struggles I want my characters to face, and then I fudge the medical details so they're just right to make happen exactly what I want to happen. but it's also a very fun thought exercise to go "well if it was this specific way, how would human society react to it? what would the consequences be for specific subsets of people?". these two thought processes are the true meat of omegaverse. to me. and often they feed into each other. you make up one thing for the plot and then ponder the other implications it has.
