Nigel Owens will referee the match between Argentina and Georgia at the rugby union World Cup in Lyons this evening and he has a stock retort if any of the players get lippy. “You’ve got two ears, one mouth. Use them in proportion,” he will say.

The Welshman also has a prepared response for when he hears the accusation that he is a “homer”. “Just so long as you don’t call me a homo,” he will respond. Which might sound strange coming from most referees, but not from Owens. He is gay, you see.

His sexuality should not be worthy of note, but it is for the reasons that Graeme Le Saux has spelt out in his autobiography and John Amaechi, the former England basketball player, made plain in his memoirs, published this year. To be gay, or erroneously thought to be gay in Le Saux’s case, is to risk becoming a pariah in the backward world of professional sports teams.

Amaechi summed up the dread of the gay sportsman. “Say you’re a footballer,” he said. “From 6, you’ve been the golden boy. And there’s a real reverence for what you can do. There’s hero worship upon meeting you. You’ve made all this effort to get to this stage and then you risk jeopardising the whole thing.”

As an official, Owens does not have the hero worship to worry about, but he did agonise that “coming out” might destroy his career. If players could be so cruel to their own, what mercy would they show to an openly gay referee?

His relief at discovering a more tolerant world has made him happy to discuss his private life. He did not intend for his sexuality to become a talking point and he is no gay-rights campaigner, but he hopes that his openness may break down barriers. There is a wish that others may not suffer the agonies that he did.

From the village of Mynyddcerrig, near Llanelli, Owens spent years telling little white lies to hide his sexuality. He is 36, but it was only a couple of years ago that he had the courage to tell his family.

“The hardest thing was telling my mum,” he said. “It was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do, saying the word ‘gay’. When you are an only child, it makes it even harder. If I’d had the chance, I would have loved a wife, family, kids, a natural life, if that’s the right way to put it.

“Apart from a few close friends, I found it so hard to tell people that I sent round a text message. I had been making up excuses for years about why I didn’t have a girlfriend or where I might be going at night. It becomes very hard to live your life and you wonder if there is any way out.”

He harboured suicidal thoughts and working in sport only made it harder to see a solution. “You might think rugby would be one of the worst, being a macho sport,” he said. “When I sat down with my line manager from the Welsh Rugby Union to talk it over, I did wonder if it might prove impossible to continue. I thought it might be worse for a referee because people don’t like us at the best of times.

“But, honestly, it has been fine. Maybe there will be some people who are uncomfortable around me, but I have had many supportive messages from people in the game. I go to clubs where I might have to share showers and there’s been no problems. I’ve not had anything worse than the odd heckle – ‘a bent referee’, that type of thing. Nothing malicious.”

As well as the ability to live an open life, his forthrightness has brought another upside. As Martina Navratilova, the former tennis player, said after Amaechi’s book was published: “It’s hugely important for the kids, so they don’t feel alone in the world.”

Owens did not plan to “go public”, but once word seeped out, he was not going to deny it and the positive reaction backed up Navratilova’s argument. “I haven’t thought about being a standard-bearer, but from the letters, e-mails and phone calls, I know it has helped some people in their own situations,” he said. “That is the best thing to come from it.

“You still hear about gay teenagers taking their lives because they don’t know where to turn, which is terrible. And a lot of people I know who are gay have moved away from the rural areas and down to Cardiff and Swansea because they didn’t feel comfortable in a small community. But I have stayed local and not had any problems. It is about perceptions. We are not all camp like Daffyd [the staunch “homosexualist” and “only gay in the village” in Little Britain]. Maybe if I was, it would have been more difficult to accept me.”

The question of whether a gay footballer or rugby player could come out has become a bit of a media fixation. Owens’s experience would suggest that rugby may be open-minded, although perhaps it is one thing if it is a referee, another if it is a teammate. All he can tell any player is that he has cast aside a heavy burden. And instead of being driven out of the sport, he is about to enjoy the proudest moment of his career.