Yeah it's really not the preferred nomenclature.
And there's evidence even lactose-intolerant ("lactase nonpersistent") demographics can tolerate ever-larger amounts of lactose with a gradual ramp-up of consumption that shifts their gut biomes in a different direction:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38159728/
There's a chance the conventional view overweights human genetics and underweights biome, which could create a self-fulfilling diagnosis of "lactose intolerance".
That is: a person notices a bad reaction, and is told (influenced by demographic tendencies) "oh, as an adult you'll inevitably be lactose-intolerant". They avoid dairy, further thinning (or completely eliminating) the bacteria that could help from their gut, ensuring a more-noticeable negative reaction upon further consumption.
OTOH, if the right bacterial mix was maintained, or reintroduced then maintained if necessary, many considering themselves lactose-intolerant might not persistently be.
(Separate from the bacteria themselves assisting in lactose digestion, there's even some chance that the positive or negative shock of a wildly-changed biome might epigenetically affect the beyond-childhood activation of the human genome's own lactase genes – a possibility mentioned in the middle of this microbiologist's writeup: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/health/lactose-intolerance-mi... )
Lactose tolerance is a very wide scale, from zero tolerance to even cheese to being able to drink multiple glasses of milk without getting diarrhea.
Based on anecdotal evidence and the seeming popularity of pizza, a lactose intolerance so great that cheese is an issue seems to be rare.