Growing up in the Scottish Borders, it was something of an inevitability that Craig Kyle would take up rugby.

From Hawick specifically, Kyle’s hometown club, more than 60 players have gone on to represent Scotland – including current internationals Rory Sutherland and Darcy Graham.

There are other sports that Kyle has enjoyed. He is qualified to lead skiing groups, and he does distance running for charity, but rugby was always going to be the mainstay.

For the area, he was a relatively late starter. Once Kyle got going in rugby though, he never looked back.

While enjoying the social benefits that come with team sports, the physicality of rugby specifically was also something that drew Kyle in.

“It’s basically bred into you there, you’re born to play rugby,” he explained.

“I didn’t actually start playing rugby until I was about 10, which isn’t late but a lot of people start from when they are three years old. Seemingly whenever it got brought up I would protest against having to go and play – I suppose they were trying to get me to go, and I wasn’t having it at all!

“Then when I got to the later years in primary school, all my friends would be playing in the street at night and down at the park. During the winter when there wasn’t any light we were up in the cul-de-sac where there weren’t any cars and we were playing on the tarmac.

“Rugby has provided me with a lot of friends. From the start at primary school, all of my friends were there, and it was a common thing that everybody bonded over.

“I’m still friends with a lot of those people today. I might not see them – as happens when you grow up, they have ended up here there and everywhere – but it’s great.

“I think it could have possibly been that I was starting to feel a bit left out when everyone was talking about being at rugby training. Maybe something funny happened, and you weren’t part of that, so I thought I’d try it and I just got the bug. From there, I was hooked.

“I’m not sure what it is that keeps me going back now, because my body is not in a great state. I’ve actually currently got a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder, and that has just been rolling on and on.

“Basically, I’ll go and play a game, injure myself, be out for five or six weeks and then I’ll go and do it all over again – but I just can’t leave. I feel too young to be walking away at this point.

“I think the physicality is part of the thrill. You don’t want to be injured, but there is a risk element that I guess I enjoy.”

There can often be preconceptions about how welcoming rural areas are for LGBTQ+ people.

A report released last year by LGBT Youth Scotland revealed that rural LGBTQ+ youth felt significantly less welcome in their local communities than their non-rural counterparts.

However, Kyle never had any issue with coming out as gay, and he suspects that being such a small, close-knit area actually worked in his favour.

“Because it’s a small town, when I was younger I was always out in the pubs,” Kyle reasoned.

“I’m a very chatty person, and it got me knowing people. Everyone got to see the fun and bright side of me, so when it did all come out people were just like ‘that’s cool’. There was absolutely no difference in the person I was, or how I acted towards them or how they acted towards me.

“It has been very comforting, and Hawick is a very tight-knit community where everyone is really friendly and looks out for each other. If you walk 500 metres down the high street and you’ll probably say hello to about 50 people.

“In a place like that, it’s difficult in itself feeling like you can come out. You fear what everyone will think, and everybody knowing you does make it quite difficult, but I got to a point in my life where a lot of people kind of knew that I was gay without me really having to come out. Because of the small-town vibes, word spread and that was it.

“Even before I came out, being in the under-18s rugby team as I was still trying to come to terms with it, I don’t think it ever really crossed my mind to not be playing rugby.

“I was that hooked on it, and I enjoyed the game that much, it never really crossed my mind that I might not fit in, or that I might not deserve to be there.

“There are 15 guys on a rugby team, so no matter what team you’re in there are probably one or two guys you don’t get on with. If someone wasn’t happy with me being gay and playing for the team, I would still go out and play – then if they didn’t want to speak to me afterwards, that’s up to them. It was never a problem for me.

“The guys that I play rugby with are great guys. There has always been a bit of banter, and even when I did properly come out eventually – as word of mouth spread – nothing changed in the slightest.

“It maybe put me at ease a little bit more, but I think because there had been little bits of banter and people had made jokes, I felt like they really were my friends and they were there to support me.

“I had the sense that nothing would change, and if anything it has probably made things much better.

“I’m quite a laid back person, I’ve never really taken too much to heart. I’ve had to be like that because of where I was in my mid-teens and I was panicking about having feelings for guys. That wasn’t what I wanted, I didn’t think that was how my life should be, so if people made jokes and I took them to heart I could have ended up in a really bad place.

“You hear stories all the time about people taking their lives, but I knew these guys were my friends and they never intended for anything to be horrible comments. That really did help.

“It was a relief in a lot of ways, and having those great friends and knowing where they were coming from did comfort me a lot.”

Kyle’s coming out story is about as unique as you will find.

Many LGBTQ+ people only tell friends or family when they feel like there is something tangible to share, but while Kyle made something of a public statement in support of his boyfriend, that also included a live television broadcast.

Kyle’s partner is world champion curler and Olympian Bruce Mouat, and Kyle essentially “came out” when he was on TV supporting Mouat during the Olympics and got labelled as his boyfriend.

“That was kind of my big coming out moment,” Kyle recalled.

“When it came to the Olympics themselves, there were photos in the papers and interviews, that was the big ‘reveal’ so to speak. There was no hiding from it after that!

“It never really crossed my mind that I would be on TV being called his boyfriend. I was just there to support Bruce.

“We were all so focused on watching the game and seeing what the outcome was going to be, I was never worried that it might happen. I never thought ‘oh my god, these cameras are going to come up to me and start asking me questions, and people are going to find out’. When they did come up, I was just being me.

“It was the big reveal, but at that point I was totally ready, so it never fazed me. I suppose it is one of the more unique coming out stories!

“The best one was my granny. In Hawick, there’s a local festival called the Hawick Common-Riding, which is a festival that commemorates a battle from 500-odd years ago.

“My and Bruce were sitting outside, just doing our thing and minding our own business, and there were photographers taking photos.

“Hawick’s local paper comes out with a big feature on the festival, and here was a photo of me and Bruce with the caption ‘here’s Craig Kyle and his partner Bruce Mouat’.

“Earlier that week, I had introduced Bruce to my granny, and she asked if he was staying in the spare bedroom – then the local paper comes out, and my granny has obviously read it!

“Nothing was ever said, but my granny found out by reading the local newspaper. If she had been on social media, she would have known, but that was possibly easier than having to keep trying to cover it up. It was funny, but it was a surprise to her, very much.”

Being in a relationship with Mouat, Kyle as begun to get involved in curling as well as rugby.

They may seem quite distinct, but the Hawick native absolutely sees some crossover between the two sports.

“In rugby, I wasn’t much of a ball carrier – I did more supporting and more of the hard work, so moving into curling what I’ve really enjoyed is the sweeping,” Kyle said.

“Obviously I quite like making the precision shots as much as I can, and getting the thrill of watching your stone curl in, but being able to work hard in the sweeping and try to make a difference from a different angle, I think that’s where the similarities are.

“It’s hard working and it gives you a bit of adrenaline. You can get a sweat on and work hard to help make a difference.

“The other day, one of the coaches at the beginners’ club that I go to was talking about Bruce playing at the Perth Masters, and he asked someone how Bruce managed to make one of his shots.

“The boy replied back that he had a good set of sweepers, and it got me thinking about how much it really is a four-man game. You’ve got the guy that throws the stone, but the communication between him, his two sweepers and the guy at the other end to judge the line and the speed, it’s totally a four-man game.

“Again there are links there to rugby where your attack and defence have to communicate to figure out what they’re going to do.”

While Mouat has been immensely visible as an LGBTQ+ role model at the highest level of his sport, Kyle is one of the very few gay rugby players outside of inclusive rugby teams in Scotland.

He does not feel any added responsibility to represent the community, although he does acknowledge the potential impact of simply going about his business.

Having had a first-hand view of the work Mouat has done, though, Kyle is completely open to the prospect of taking on somewhat more of an advocacy role for LGBTQ+ people in sport in the future.

“I’ve not really felt any pressure or anything,” he added.

“Rugby is obviously quite a male-dominated sport, it’s got that hardy side to it where being gay maybe is a difficult environment to be in, but there are also a lot of gay rugby clubs so the sport is definitely becoming more welcoming.

“In the town of Hawick, if someone was gay and keen to play rugby, I guess I could be a figure for them because I haven’t gone to a gay club, I have kept playing with my friends as normal.

“They are really fond of Bruce, and whenever I’m playing rugby the first thing I get asked is ‘where’s Bruce?’ It feels like they’re more invested in him than me now!

“I could maybe see myself as a figure for local people to see that you can keep playing your sport no matter what your sexual orientation is, but obviously when it gets higher up I don’t have a presence like some of the other guys have.

“In curling, I suppose people will know me, but I don’t think I’ve got that kind of presence. Bruce has plans in the back of his head – at some point he would like to start a gay league in curling.

“There is one in Canada, and Bruce wants to bring something like that to life in Scotland. I would love to support that and be involved in any way I can.

“I’m quite a normal person, and he is too, so it’s kind of crazy that I’ve managed to meet and be part of someone’s life who has dedicated their life to a sport.

“It’s just insane what’s happened since 2020 when they hit the ice sliding. They have had a crazy few years, and it’s hard to get my head around the fact that he’s an Olympian, he’s a world champion, he’s a four-time European champion and everything else.

“It’s hard to put into words actually how I feel about it. There are clips after the final of the World Championships where I was shedding tears, so I’m one of those people who really shows their emotions.

“I think it’s easier for me to show how I feel than it is for me to put them into words. It’s just insane what he has done these past few years for himself, for the team, and for the LGBTQ+ community.

“There will be people out there who really look up to him now, so hopefully there’s a lot more that I don’t know about that he has done for other people.”