Thanks for the responses, everyone!
Actually, I've used dataset in the past with camel case being the conversion format from the dash separated format, based on what I've found in the specification for it: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLElement/dataset
Which is not to say I'm saying anyone is wrong here ... just saying the camel case version always worked for me before.
At any rate, here is a quick CodePen with a very simple mockup of what I was trying to achieve. And, of course, it seems to work fine here.
https://codepen.io/tonypiscotti/pen/OJOXjBG
I'm not certain why it's not working my particular project but based on my CodePen it seems that I can in fact leverage variables as object keys for ScrollTrigger.matchMedia(). So it must be something in the context of my client's project code that I will just need to troubleshoot further.
Sorry for the false alarm, and thanks again for the responses and input!
Best,
Tony