From left to right: Shea Daniels, MD Isley, Dan Jansen, Erin Sheriff, Daniel Zinnel and ally Natali Justiniano Pahl
Writers: Jody Gifford and Abbey Tauchen
Photographer: Duane Tinkey
Here at dsm, we believe in the power of recognition. For six years now, we’ve recognized LGBTQ Iowans and allies who work to make our state a more diverse and welcoming place to call home. Sometimes their efforts are controversial; often they’re barely noticed. Sometimes they’re successful; other times, they require more persistence.
This year, we’re proud to share the stories of six new honorees in the following pages. We celebrated them at our annual LGBTQ Legacy Leader Awards Ceremony on Sept. 12 downtown at the River Center.
We salute these remarkable Iowans and hope their courage and conviction will inspire others to follow their lead.
Shea Daniels
When Shea Daniels came out as transgender at work, in 2017, her colleagues responded with an outpouring of love, support and kindness. As Dwolla’s first openly trans employee, she ushered in a new era of inclusivity and belonging.
“It started this wave of everyone being themselves and being open and feeling they were included in the company,” Daniels said.
The company values diversity, equity and inclusion and works to empower women in leadership positions, Daniels said. That made her feel safe to come out to her boss, then-CEO Ben Milne.
“I was always a really huge advocate for people being themselves, and eventually I realized, I was being a little bit of a hypocrite here, because I was trying to make a safe place for other people, but I wasn’t talking about who I really am,” she said.
After she came out at work, Daniels hosted an event with Dwolla called “Cookies and Questions,” where she told her co-workers about her experience. “I told my story, they asked questions, and, after that, it was just like the new normal,” she said.
Daniels was then invited to join the Dwolla DEI committee, which guides the company’s efforts toward greater diversity and inclusion. In 2019, Daniels founded the Transition Forward Project, a guide to developing organizations that help transgender and nonbinary employees and customers feel a sense of belonging.
“After I came out, it was actually really good for my career because I was fully comfortable in myself and a lot more confident,” she said. “We’re just like anyone else, except we are trans and it’s not something we can control.”
Journey to acceptance
Daniels always knew she was different but had a hard time understanding why.
She never let gender norms constrain her interests. She gravitated toward traditionally masculine interests like aviation, cars and computers but always had an interest in women’s fashion. “I just didn’t understand the differences between things,” she said. “The older I got, the more I kind of shut that away, because that’s just not socially acceptable.”
Growing up in Marion, she described herself as a “pretty big nerd,” always reading science fiction books and watching “Star Trek.”
In sixth grade, she got into computer programming. She even designed a piece of software that enabled her classmates to vote in a mock presidential election in 1996.
She went to Iowa State University, where she got a computer science degree and met a woman named Lindsey Harrison, while celebrating after a class project. “We started dating and just never stopped,” Daniels said. They got married in 2014.
Advocating for change
When Harrison’s father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012, it reminded Daniels that life is short. It marked a turning point.
“I’d been struggling with my own identity,” she said. “I know I’m not a normal guy, but what am I? Because I don’t know what it feels like to be a man. I don’t know what it feels like to be a woman. I just know what it feels like to be me, and I just knew that things didn’t fit.”
She started seeing a therapist and then decided to take hormone-replacement therapy. “It’s so hard to come out and be yourself,” she said. “So, I’m sort of proof that it doesn’t have to be horrible. It can actually be this amazing experience.”
Daniels said that Des Moines has been an integral part of her positive coming-out experience. But with the anti-LGBTQ bills that have piled up over the last few years at the Statehouse, she worries the city will become unsafe. Her plan? To stay and fight.
“If we want Iowa to be a strong state with a strong economy, we need to be inclusive around things that people can’t control about who they are,” Daniels said. “Being trans is not a mental illness. It just isn’t. I’m happier and stronger and a better leader than I have been, and I want to contribute to that here. So that’s what I want to see Des Moines do — fight back against these things and push for a more inclusive state.”— A.T.
Distinctions
Founder of the Transition Forward Project.
Facilitator for the UCS Healthcare Des Moines Transgender Support Group.
Founding member of the LGBTQ Leadership Institute Advisory Council for One Iowa.
Member of the Technology Association of Iowa’s DEI Committee.
Public speaker for One Iowa.
“Shea embodies substance over drama, quality of work over judgment, and an unrelenting commitment to being who she is. Those qualities are easy to support in or outside of work. They also bring out the best in people.” – Ben Milne, founder and CEO of Brale and founder of Dwolla
MD Isley
Something is going on. I can see it in your eyes.”
Those were the words MD Isley’s mother spoke one morning as she approached her son, urging him to be as candid as possible.
It was the 1980s and Isley was in a relationship with a man in the U.S. Air Force. “We were making plans to build a life together,” Isley said.
When the letters to his boyfriend stationed in Holland were returned opened, Isley knew something was wrong. “He was being investigated by the U.S. Air Force for his homosexuality,” he said. His boyfriend had also tested positive for HIV.
Never one to open her child’s mail, Isley’s mom sensed something was amiss and read the first line of an opened letter. “It had said something like ‘I love you,’ so she knew, and she approached me,” he said. “It was incredibly emotional, but also very beautiful.”
Isley continued to test negative for HIV and visit his boyfriend, who said it was in their best interest to break up.
“I had to be open and honest from that point forward,” Isley said. “With the support and help, beginning with my mother, I was able to come out.”
From then on, Isley has dedicated his life to being true to himself and helping others do the same. Now, as the vice president of academic affairs at Des Moines Area Community College, he works to show others how to “be free, be loud, be clear, be creative and be strong.” As he put it, “Don’t let the pressures of life restrict you.”
Growing up
“I wasn’t your typical child,” Isley said. He was always exploring the outdoors, discovering plants and obsessing over animals.
Born in Des Moines, Isley moved to Louisiana at age 5. By eighth grade, his family moved to western Kentucky, where they bought a small acreage. He got his first horse and named her Jenny after his favorite childhood Breyer Model horse.
Isley described high school as “four fantastic years,” which brought him lifelong friendships. Even so, he contained his desire to express himself and to be creative. He did a lot to conform and be popular.
But through it all, he had a very supportive home life. “That, I think, has given me a gift of unsaid strength and stability that, unfortunately, many do not or have not had,” he said.
The stars aligned
This year, Isley and his husband, Doug Garnett, are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary, all thanks to a Christmas reception, a Facebook status update and a little bit of courage.
Following a magical night of conversation at a Christmas party, Isley jumped into his car and posted a simple phrase on Facebook: “Tonight … the stars aligned.”
Reeling from the embarrassment of his bold move, he took the post down. A few nights later, he met Garnett for dinner when he asked, “‘What was the meaning of that post?’”
“We’ve been together ever since,” Isley said.
Now they live on a small acreage on the edge of Des Moines, with plants and animals galore. They have four dogs — mother-daughter Frenchie duo Aza and Stella, Italian greyhound Fendi, and Boston terrier Jinx. Isley also breeds Arabian horses and owns four Arabian mares, named Odessa, Feressa, Lotus and Ellie.
Be free, be loud, be creative
“I do believe that for me and for many, being born gay is a gift, and it allows you to live and see differently and perhaps even contribute to life and to others differently as well,” he said.
Isley is committed to helping Des Moines continue to be an inclusive community. He urges everyone to come together to make a change. “It’s time for the allies to stand up and speak up louder and clearer than ever,” he said.
He is proud of Des Moines’ diverse tapestry of identities, comparing it to the Sara Bareilles song “She Used to Be Mine,” which says, “All of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie.”
“We are all everyone,” Isley said. “Becoming your authentic self does not have any negative impact on anyone else. I would hope that others know, just because it’s not yours or you don’t understand it or you can’t identify it, that does not mean in any way that you have the right or ability to prevent that from occurring or existing.” — A.T.
Distinctions
First executive director of Bravo Greater Des Moines.
Board member for the Des Moines Waterworks Foundation.
Founding member of the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus.
Former board member of One Iowa and the Iowa Pride Network.
“Time and again, MD has employed his unique skill set to establish and articulate a vision for a better future.” – Graham Gillette, president of Gillette Strategic Resources
Dan Jansen
If you’ve been to a local Pride event, LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce luncheon, fundraising gala or speaker series in the last decade, it’s likely Dan Jansen had a hand in its planning.
The program manager and board chair of the new LGBTQ Chamber has a resume that’s stacked with organizations that promote the LGBTQ community. From Capital City Pride to the Varsity Theater to many others in between, his dedication and commitment to the queer community is remarkable. But if you tell him that, he’ll humbly brush it off.
“My sweet spot is being the man behind the curtain,” he said. “My own visibility has never been the incentive or the motivation to do any of these things. It’s more about knowing what you’re good at or what your strengths are, and my strength is in building … seeing a need and building something.”
Humble beginnings
Jansen grew up on the family farm in Haverhill, a tiny town just outside of Marshalltown. The youngest of six kids, his life, you might say, was quintessentially Iowa.
“I had a big family and I just always thought that I was a good son, a good sibling, a good friend, an athlete trying to do well,” he said. “My life was always busy and full.”
Jansen attended Iowa State University and earned a degree in business and marketing. But afterward, when many men his age settled down and got married,” he simply didn’t.
“I actually dated women all through college, and it seemed like I would always get to a certain point in relationships when it would have been logical to get engaged or to get serious, and I just could never commit to that. It just never felt right,” he said. “I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and the visibility of LGBTQ was just not there. I didn’t know anything different than the environment I grew up in, but I also don’t remember ever being conflicted.”
A few years after college, Jansen headed to Amsterdam, where he learned to embrace the country’s culture, its people and a decidedly different way of life, far away from the cornfields of Iowa. It was there, at the age of 29 or 30, that he realized he was gay.
“At some point, I remember thinking, ‘You know, it’s not the other person, it’s me,’” he recalled. “That was a difficult transition. I never doubted that the people in my life would support me. It was most difficult to convince myself, because in my mind I had created this world for me, this future, and it was hard to let that go.”
A return home
Jansen spent 12 years in the Netherlands before he decided to move back to Iowa in 2011. It was a decision that would force him to confront his home state’s biases and blind spots, and to learn how to advocate and show up for the LGBTQ community.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say moving back was a little bit disappointing,” he said. “Even though Iowa was progressive in terms of marriage equality, it still felt very underground to me. It felt like a lot of people were not being forthright about their support of the LGBTQ+ community.”
His frustration boiled over after bringing a friend to his first PrideFest in 2017. The friend was ready to leave after only an hour or so. “He just said, ‘Nothing here really represents me,’” Jansen said. “I was really frustrated by that: To have a coming out experience, which is so difficult, and then to feel disappointed. You put everything on the line and then you show up and think to yourself, ‘Well, why did I do that?’
“I was really angry for a few months, and I started thinking that people deserve more,” Jansen explained. “There’s such a wide spectrum of folks who are LGBTQ, so you have to provide something for everyone, to find their space.”
That’s what prompted him to take a more active role in LGTBQ causes. He joined Capital City Pride to help the festival expand its focus to include more women, more transgender folks and more families — and to help the organization offer programs year-round. “It just felt really critical for Des Moines to develop more robustly,” he said.
Jansen often cites a personal mantra: “Visibility is education.” As he puts it, “Every time you can make your story known, every time you can connect with somebody personally, that makes a difference between judgment and acceptance.”
He recalled ups and downs along the way — “moments of great joy and moments of great frustration” — but he’s grateful for the progress. “It’s been an amazing journey.” — J.G.
Distinctions
Co-founder of the Iowa LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce.
Former board chair for Capital City Pride.
Board member for the Varsity Cinema – Des Moines Film.
Helped bring six panels of the AIDS memorial quilt to Hoyt Sherman Place during Pride 2024.
“Dan has exhibited exemplary dedication, leadership and innovation in advancing the rights and visibility of the LGBTQ+ community, leaving a lasting mark across the LGBTQ+ experience.” – Heather Schott, director of diversity, equity and inclusion for the Krause Group
Erin Sheriff
When Erin Sheriff, a senior actuary at Principal Financial Group, and her team worked to modify company policies, applications and claim forms to include all genders, the same two questions popped up: What’s the difference between sex and gender? And which one matters on these forms?
To help others understand these distinctions, Sheriff created an educational presentation with the company’s employee resource group, which attracted the attention of senior leadership. This led to the formation of a corporate workgroup dedicated to addressing the issue company-wide.
“Anytime (customers) deal with Principal, we want them to feel included,” Sheriff said. “Principal is still on a journey to get all of our systems and everything updated to handle all genders. It’s a yearslong process that we’re sort of in the middle of right now.”
Sheriff’s influence extends beyond her company. She has shared her expertise at the One Iowa Workplace Summit and the Society of Actuaries annual meeting, where she presented on the impact of using gender in rating insurance products. The Actuary magazine published her research in 2020.
Her advocacy stems from her own experiences. “Being LGBTQ, you know, it’s nothing that we can change about ourselves,” she said. “I spent a lot of years trying not to be gay and that obviously doesn’t work. It took a lot of years to accept who I was. I’ve grown to be proud of who I am.”
Early life
Born in West Des Moines, Sheriff spent most of her childhood in Central Iowa. She played a lot of sports with her three brothers, but soccer was always her favorite. “I’m of the era that ‘tomboy’ was the name given to girls that didn’t fit the gender norm,” she said. “Today we might call that nonbinary.”
Sheriff has known she was gay since the first grade. Growing up, her issues were more related to gender than orientation. “As a young kid, you don’t think a lot about relationships, but I was often excluded from things that I liked to do. Or if I wasn’t excluded, I was the only girl in the room or the only girl on the field,” she said. “I often felt self-conscious about what people thought of me as the only girl.”
She went to the University of Iowa to play soccer and to study actuarial science. She graduated in 2001 and began work at Cigna in Connecticut. In 2007, a desire to be closer to home led her to Principal.
That year also marked a significant milestone in Iowa, when the governor signed the Civil Rights Act that ensured Iowans would be evaluated in the workplace based on merit, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. The signing ceremony took place on the Principal campus. “That was a very impactful thing,” she said. “That made me feel, maybe for the first time, a little bit safer to possibly be out at work.”
Embracing individuality
While living in Connecticut, Sheriff was recruiting actuaries from Iowa schools. On a flight to Iowa in 2004, her plane lost cabin pressure and made an emergency landing in Buffalo, New York. “Nobody on the plane knew if we were going to land or not, and I had several minutes where I thought that I might die on a plane without my parents knowing that I was gay,” she said.
So when she got home, she came out to her family, who took it very well. “They asked me questions and they’ve continued to learn since then and support me,” she said.
Sheriff continues to advocate for gender inclusivity in her workplace, encouraging co-workers to be involved in employee resource groups, which, she said, should be “more of an expectation of the job than something you do on the side.”
She also encourages allies to speak up and be involved politically. “If allies could make it more a part of their daily life, we could make progress faster,” she said.
Sheriff and her partner, Heather Schott, have been together for eight years. They have two kids — Tori, a junior at Iowa State, and Mikey, a seventh grader — as well as two boxers, Carli and Tobin, who are named after female soccer players.
“I think the parts about me that are unique and different are some of the coolest parts about me,” Sheriff said. “Rather than try to fight it or hide it and spend so much energy on that, we could spend more energy on being proud of who we are and staying close to people who support that.”— A.T.
Distinctions
Trustee for West Des Moines Water Works.
Author of 2020 article in The Actuary magazine about the impacts of gender in rating insurance products.
Principal’s subject matter expert for nonbinary gender inclusion.
“Erin has dedicated extraordinary leadership efforts for not only our LGBTQ+ employee resource group within Principal, but also in the communities in which we operate.” – Miriam Lewis, chief inclusion officer, and Lou Flori, VP and CFO for the retirement division, Principal Financial Group
Daniel Zinnel
Growing up in a small town, it can be hard to find local diversity. That was the case for Daniel Zinnel, who grew up in Pomeroy, Iowa — population 520.
These days, Zinnel is the CEO at Proteus, here in Des Moines, and says he can look back positively on his early years. Even if he’d realized he was gay back then, there was little to no LGBTQ representation in the place he called home.
“I appreciated my childhood growing up on a farm in rural Iowa, even with the challenges of living in one of the most conservative parts of our state,” he said. “I didn’t necessarily have positive images of anyone within the LGBTQ community, and I really didn’t know any LGBTQ people until maybe high school.”
He reflected further: “It was incredible how, at the time, we valued and were No. 1 in the country when it came to education. There had been a lot of movement and progress toward really supporting Iowa’s legacy of being a champion for civil and human rights, especially within the LGBTQ community.”
A move to the big city
After attending Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge, Zinnel moved to the state capital, where he and five roommates lived together and performed eight shows a day on the “Soda and Sounds” stage at Adventureland in Altoona. He came out to his family that same summer, when he was 21.
“I think so many LGBTQ folks who go through the coming out experience are at the point where they’re willing to lose relationships in order to live their authentic lives,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, but I imagine I thought I would lose some of my family. But they were all incredible and to this day are very supportive of me — even my grandmother. She described how she remembered when interracial marriage wasn’t legal and how she didn’t see this as any different.”
Just three years after he came out, gay marriage became legal in Iowa.
Zinnel remembers that day in 2009 and what it meant to him. “I was in the car, listening to the radio when the news came on about the court’s ruling, and I remember feeling such joy,” he said. “There were some negative things that happened afterward, with the three Supreme Court justices getting removed, but there was just so much positivity, joy and hope. It inspired not only us within the LGBTQ community but people across the country to know that if a state like Iowa can pass marriage equality, it can happen anywhere.
“It brought people together in a way that I hadn’t seen before,” he added. “That’s when I started envisioning what life could be like for us.”
An advocate and an ally
The Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage prompted Zinnel to get more involved in related causes. Since then, he’s worked with Proteus, a nonprofit that supports farm workers by providing job training, health care and education assistance. He also spent time at Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, Lutheran Services in Iowa and One Iowa.
During his tenure at One Iowa, Zinnel helped found the LGBTQ Leadership Institute, now in its 13th year. “I had been toying with creating an LGBTQ Leadership Institute and brought the idea to One Iowa, which helped to pivot the organization to focus on workplace culture, health and wellness, and LGBTQ leadership,” he said. “My vision was to create a pipeline so we could have more representation in positions of power, so we could create this ripple effect of LGBTQ folks in our community that would inspire participants to create social change within their own communities as well.” — J.G.
Distinctions
Former executive director of One Iowa, where he launched the LGBTQ Leadership Institute and annual LGBTQ Workplace Culture Summit.
Board member for One Iowa Action.
Mentor for Lead DSM’s Community Connect Program.
“To this day, Daniel continues to fight against injustices for all individuals. He has a unique way of inspiring, teaching and consistently and effectively advocating for the most vulnerable in our community.” – Rich Salas, chief diversity officer, Des Moines University, and 2023 LGBTQ Legacy Leader Ally
Ally: Natali Justiniano Pahl
Born and raised on Des Moines’ East side, Natali Justiniano Pahl can’t remember when she wasn’t fighting for someone or something important to her.
“It started with a strong belief in human rights and caring for other people.
That’s just how I was raised,” she said. “My mom was from Des Moines but she went off to the Peace Corps to a whole different country to support people with different needs. She was always looking after others.”
Justiniano Pahl, who is now retired from the human resources field, says diversity, equity and inclusion have always been important to her as a professional and even more as a leader. She believes that advocating for others is “the right thing to do” and frequently volunteers her time to causes that support women, Latinos and the LGBTQ community.
“One of my strengths is that I have a voice and I don’t shy away from hard things,” she said. “I’ve always been that person who speaks up for people when they have been passed up or overlooked or when they don’t feel seen or heard.”
Advocating for the LGBTQ community
Justiniano Pahl shifted her efforts into a higher gear in 2015, when she went to the One Iowa Gala and learned about the organization’s work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. “I was like, ‘Wow! This is a kick-ass organization and I want to be a part of it,’” she said. “I believed that what they were doing was making a real difference. I started off giving money and sponsoring things like the LGBTQ Workplace Summit, and it just grew from there.”
Today, Justiniano Pahl serves on One Iowa’s board, among others, and says that now, more than ever, is the time to make some noise to support the queer community. After the Legislature proposed 40 anti-LGBTQ bills during its last session, she said this is no time to hold your tongue.
“My voice has to be turned up because some people are not going to be able to do that,” she said. “I don’t want to cause a rift, but I’m not going to give up, and I am going to continue to be present and knock on doors and be that person, especially for transgender folks, to be their barrier, to protect them from that hate, to protect them from the people who don’t want them to exist in the world or to just be themselves.”
A parent and an ally
Justiniano Pahl has long been an ally for the queer community, raising a queer child has made her even more sympathetic and supportive of parents and children alike.
“His coming out just turned up the volume of my support for LGBTQ people,” she said. “But I don’t just do it because I have a gay son. I was already in that mode. It just allowed me to notch it up. Do I worry marriage equality might go away? Heck, yes. Do I know that my son probably won’t end up living in Iowa? Yeah. I don’t expect that he’s going to stay here, given what’s going on, but that’s something I have to reconcile as a parent, too.”
So what does true allyship mean? Justiniano Pahl says it’s about opening the door for LGBTQ people to be who they want to be, no matter what.
“I just want people to be themselves, the way they were born, and I’m going to help them be successful by using my voice and my presence and my influence and skills to make it happen,” she said. “That whole discussion around like, ‘Oh, but it’s their choice’ — like, do you really think people would choose to be looked upon as not human?
“Being an ally means showing up,” she added. “It means speaking up. It means not turning away because it’s hard. I want to go into that fire. That’s how I describe my approach. I don’t shy away from it, because it’s too important. These are humans who deserve a wonderful life.” — J.G.
Distinctions
Member of Women United Global Leadership.
Board member and speaker in the Latina Leadership Initiative of Greater Des Moines.
Board member for One Iowa.
Mentor for Lead DSM’s Community Connect Program.
Board member for Iowa ACES 360.
“As an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, Natali devotes her time, skills and resources to ensuring the longevity of One Iowa’s mission. Her generous spirit and robust leadership experience have proven invaluable during One Iowa’s periods of change and growth.” – Courtney Reyes, executive director, One Iowa
