> you can’t have references to uninitialized memory.

The method is available[0] in nightly Rust

    pub const unsafe fn as_uninit_ref<'a>(self) -> Option<&'a MaybeUninit<T>>
    where
        T: Sized,
    {
        // SAFETY: the caller must guarantee that `self` meets all the
        // requirements for a reference.
        if self.is_null() { None } else { Some(unsafe { &*(self as *const MaybeUninit<T>) }) }
    }

[0]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/core/primitive.pointer.html...