How do you add a UseRef to a React icon?

Question

I'm trying to reference a React icon through a ref, and attempting to do so yields to error:

Function components cannot be given refs. Attempts to access this ref will fail. Did you 
    mean to use React.forwardRef()?

Is there any way to work around this? I tried wrapping the icon in a React.forwardRef() to no avail.

import React, { useRef } from 'react'
import { FaChevronDown } from "react-icons/fa"

    export default function Dashboard() {
        const chevronRef = useRef(null)

        const ChevronIconWrapper = React.forwardRef((props, ref) =>(
            <FaChevronDown className="icon" ref={ref} />
        ));

        const AccountLabel = () => {
            {/* Neither of these seem to work.  */}
            <FaChevronDown className="icon" ref={chevronRef} />
            <ChevronIconWrapper ref={chevronRef}/>
        }
        
        return(
              <AccountLabel />       
        )
    }

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react/16.6.3/umd/react.production.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/react-dom/16.6.3/umd/react-dom.production.min.js"></script>