The opportunity – or lack of opportunity – for contemporary women to be ordained as bhikkhunīs in theTheravāda tradition has been discussed for a few decades now. Today, a number of local Buddhist communitiesand transregional traditions have revived “full ordination” (upasampadā) and enable women to live asbhikkhunīs in formally established and recognized monastic communities (saṃgha): since 1988, and withincreasing frequency in the 21st century, ordinations of women into Theravāda Buddhism take place in India,Sri Lanka, Australia, Germany, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and in the U.S.A. These local Buddhist communitieshave developed their own stances and practices regarding women’s roles as ‘religious professionals’, reflectingthe Buddhist community’s specific local historical development and contemporary needs. Today, with agrowing global Theravāda bhikkhunīsaṃgha, more and more Mahāyāna bhikṣuṇīs request to be re-ordained asTheravāda bhikkhunīs and to live in these new women’s communities. At the same time, some bhikkhunicommunities in Asia feel the need to draw clear boundaries between themselves and their ‘Western’ sisters.The presentation will discuss such ambivalences and inner contradictions of the process of the Theravādabhikkhunīs’ gradual local and global establishment and acceptance.