Translation slate as a metaphor for puberty and the way that poor sex education fails kids.
Qven and the other Edges are not given any education about what happens when they match - so much so that they can't tell when puberty starts, but they are then criticised by adults for not telling an adult once puberty has begun, and are accused of 'hiding it'. Qven's lack of sufficient education is part of what leads to em getting assaulted, because the assailant claims to know what happens at puberty. The justification is simply that the Edges don't need to know, and even that justification is barely given.
It's also noteworthy that when Qven begins interacting with someone who isn't raised in Presger culture and starts learning more about life outside Presger space, e starts identifying as a different gender to the gender that 'all' Presger have.
Reet also has no idea what happens when his body prepares to match, but his story is more a metaphor for male puberty specifically. I think it was intentional on Leckie's part that Reet identifies as male, and always has done (and that he's an ethnic minority). Because from the moment it is known that Reet is a Presger Translator Juvenile approaching puberty, he is treated as a monster who is inherently going to assault and kill someone as a result of hitting puberty.
Almost everyone around him has decided that he will be so overwhelmed by biological urges that it's a surprise he hasn't killed or assaulted anyone already. We find out that he bit a kid when he was a child (not surprising even for a human child), but his parents had a reasonable conversation with him and he never hurt anyone again. Sure, he gets urges to match, but he can resist them because he doesn't want to hurt anyone. It turns out that willpower really is enough to stop this 'dangerous adolescent' from hurting anyone. Yet he is still both literally and metaphorically dehumanised because the system insists that he's a dangerous creature, mere moments from giving in to base instinct.
