Note: This story has been updated to include comment from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

AUSTIN — The Obama administration is appealing a Texas judge's ruling against the federal government's new guidelines for transgender student bathroom use, deciding not to wait for him to issue final details on his earlier decision that has temporarily blocked the guidelines since August.

On Tuesday, Judge Reed O'Connor clarified his temporary injunction against the transgender guidelines applied nationwide and not just to the 13 states that sued to block them. The ruling meant no schools would have to abide by the rules, which would have required schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice, while the case was heard.

But O'Connor hadn't yet made a decision on several other factors in the case, including whether his injunction applied to transgender teachers and staff, and whether Department of Labor practices would be affected.

The Obama administration didn't want to wait.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Education and other federal government parties named in the suit filed a notice that they were appealing O'Connor's injunction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, handles appeals for cases out of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and is considered one of the most conservative federal appellate courts in the nation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the 13-state lawsuit, said the appeal reflected "the impatience and overzealousness" that led to the guidelines.

"My office will not sit idly by while the president continues to ignore the Constitution, nor while he strong-arms Texas schools with loss of funding," Paxton said. "We are confident that the rule of law will prevail."

In May, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Texas' lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's transgender bathroom order. (Jay Janner / Austin American-Statesman)

Texas has been at the forefront of the culture war over transgender rights, with Paxton and other state leaders criticizing local school districts that have adopted the federal guidelines and proposing to pass legislation similar to North Carolina's controversial House Bill 2.

That measure requires people to use the bathroom of the sex that corresponds to the one found on their birth certificate, and while it sets statewide nondiscrimination policies in employment and services, it does not extend these protections to the LGBT community. It has prompted a backlash that has included organizations pulling events out of North Carolina.

The fight over the transgender student bathroom issue flared up earlier this year in Fort Worth, where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized the school district for adopting the federal guidelines without parental input. Paxton later agreed to have dinner with a transgender student and his family, but has not slowed his fight against the Obama administration on the issue.

The day after the state's August win in O'Connor's court, Paxton filed another lawsuit to block new federal health care rules that ban discrimination by doctors, hospitals and insurers against transgender people.