Leinster Rugby v Dragons

RAINBOW LACES
CRAIG
Maxwell-Keys
AS PART OF
OUR PRIDE
MONTH
CELEBRATIONS,
LEINSTER
RUGBY
CAUGHT UP
WITH CRAIG
MAXWELL-
KEYS, RUGBY
REFEREE, ABOUT
THE RAINBOW
LACES
CAMPAIGN
AND HIS OWN
EXPERIENCES
OF SHARING
HIS SEXUALITY.
The process of opening up, ‘coming out
of the closet’ was not straight-forward
for a quiet, introverted and younger
Craig Maxwell-Keys.
It was to his closest friends, Vanessa
and Stephen, he turned to when the
time came, quite simply, to be himself.
“It was a huge conversation to have with my
best friends,” he says.
“I tried to have it two or three times, but always
pulled out. With any valued relationship the
constant fear was: ‘How will they react?’
“Looking back on it, my biggest regret or
embarrassment is that I could have ever
doubted how they would react.
“If I’m honest, I knew deep down the
reaction was always going to be positive and
supportive. Yet, I still doubted them.”
Ultimately, the support was unwavering, the
loyalty and love of Vanessa and Stephen
sealed by a secret shared.
Until then, a mile-a-minute pace of life didn’t
leave much time to sit and stew over the
complexities of his personal life.
Slowly, surely, Maxwell-Keys had grown to
appreciate how an issue unresolved could
fester into something more sinister.
“There were certainly hard times when no one
else knew. It was just you with your thoughts. It
was quite dark,” he says.
“You do question how you are going to
navigate through it. Those thoughts can spiral
quite quickly.
“You do need that soundboard, that support
system, to think it through.”
Back then, in an overall context, he was
experiencing life fully for the first time, seeing
the sort of future he could have all around him.
“It was at Leicester University where I accepted
I was gay and I had two years working in the
pharmaceutical sector, a field I had spent four
years getting a degree in.
“I was in a really positive place. I was loving
life,” he shares.
“To me, coming out would put me in an even
more positive place simply because all the
energy you spend monitoring and censoring
your every interaction could be reinvested in
me being more authentically me.
“I just went from a good place to an even
better place,” he says.
From The Ground Up | 84 | www.leinsterrugby.ie