Yes, Gay Country Icon Chely Wright Loves Chappell Roan's Lesbian Country Anthem 'The Giver': 'I Blushed a Little' (Exclusive)

• Chely Wright praises Chappell Roan's new country song "The Giver," but admits she "blushed a little bit" when she first heard it
• The country singer says Roan is "challenging systemic norms and long-standing rules, explicit and implicit"
• Wright also says she believes things have "1,000%" improved for queer people since she came out in 2010

Things have certainly changed in the 15 years since Chely Wright became the first major country star to come out as gay — and there’s no better proof of Wright’s legacy than Chappell Roan’s latest anthem.

When Roan released her fiddle-fueled single “The Giver” earlier this month, she described it as a “lesbian country song” that draws inspiration from boot-scootin’ boogies like Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).”

For Wright, who on March 25 announced her new role as the senior vice president of corporate social responsibility and new market growth at the facilities management/workplace experience company ISS, watching Roan get the job done has been a joy.

“I think her talent is undeniable. What a great voice, what a great singer-songwriter, and what a great persona,” she tells PEOPLE. “I personally love the song. I think it’s so clever.”’

Wright, 54, known for hits like “Single White Female” and “It Was,” likens the tune — which features cheeky lyrics about sexual pleasure that riff on stereotypical country themes — to early Shania Twain, like “Any Man of Mine,” noting both songs’ “aggressive, in-your-face, tongue-in-cheek” flavor of female empowerment.

“I think it’s super bold. I will admit, I blushed a little bit when I heard it, but I’m 54, right? I’m a Golden Girl now,” she says. “It’s 100% a country record to me. It ticks every box that one would expect it to tick to be a great country song and a great record and a great performance.”

Wright also expresses pride in the fact that Roan, 27, feels “empowered” — in a way that’s notably different from when Wright was making music in her 20s.

“I don’t want to over-characterize how she feels and shows up in the world because that’s not mine to do. But I think she possesses a level of psychological safety that those of us making records in the ‘90s didn’t,” she says. “And she’s also incredibly brave and powerful and courageous to do and sing about what she’s singing about in the way that she does. I just love that she’s part of a wave. She’s challenging systemic norms and long-standing rules, explicit and implicit. I say, go Chappell Roan, go. You go, Missouri girl, you go.”

The singer says she “1,000%” believes that things have improved for queer people since she came out, especially in the country music sphere, as thanks to her, “there will never again be a first.”

“The great singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier said to me, ‘Chely, keep in mind the first mouse seldom gets the cheese.’ That depends on what the cheese is. If the cheese is holding on to that identity that you held for yourself and that fans thought you were or wanted you to be, then yeah, first mouse probably is going to get snapped in the trap,” she says. “But when I think about what I was able to do and how strategically I came out… I’m really proud of it and I’m really proud that there is a wave of change there now. I was a drop in that wave of change, and I think it’s getting better.”

She continues, “I love country music. I love the Opry. I love the fans and I happen to be a person who happens to be queer. The more we can do that and the more there is representation in the genre, I think it’s getting better.”

Wright cites the late Revs. Welton Gaddy and Peter Gomes and Bishop Gene Robinson with helping her on her journey, and helping her become part of the coming out journey for other people, some publicly known and others not.

“One famous celebrity that has come out calls me her gay whisperer,” she says. “It’s the honor of a lifetime to get to do that, because that was done for me.”

Though Wright says she’s still writing music every day and plans to release more albums, she’s currently relishing her new role in the corporate world.

“I force people to say it out loud: diversity, equity and inclusion,” she says. “For companies like ISS and the clients that we have… you are creating environments where people belong and feel safe. I couldn’t be more proud to be at a company who is not stepping away from the key tenets of inclusion and belonging. We’re leaning into it because we know it matters. And I think, everybody hold steady, we’re going to be okay. This is a moment in time and the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice.”